Stand My Ground
by novlomien
Summary: After Sara's departure, a transitional CSI from Houston comes in to take her place. At first, she is not accepted to the group, but finds her way in their hearts and she just might find something more. NickOC. Also, OC DNA tech added for story purpose.
1. Chapter 1

**I am writing this for a dear friend of mine so I included her in this story. I hope everyone who reads it enjoys it! **

Disclaimer: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is © Anthony E Zuiker/CBS. I do not own anything, except for the original character who happens to be my best friend.

* * *

A Texan woman walked into the Las Vegas Crime Lab dressed in a black and white semi-business attire and greeted the front reception desk. Fatigue was present on her face from flying so many hours to get there. She had checked into her hotel previously but there was absolutely no time to get any sleep, for she had to get to her new job. Judy, the receptionist, greeted her, knowing that she was coming in today. The woman seemingly loomed over the desk since she was unusually tall for a female, especially since she was in heels. Judy directed her towards the supervisor's office down the hall and a few turns later she would find it.

"The office with lots of weird collections in it, like bugs and fetal pigs, you can't miss it," she told her, a grin apparent on her face as she gestured that it was easy to find. The new woman grinned in return; she knew this was going to be interesting.

The heels of her shoes clacked behind her as she made her way slowly to the said office, keeping a strong hold on the manila folder and a bag with a change of clothes in her hands. She figured that she would look nice for the meeting with the supervisor; after all she didn't want to show up to his office in a uniform ready for work if she wasn't going to be on a case right away. Her nose scrunched up at the thought of a scenario of a grease monkey at a formal party, sort of thing.

She followed the narrow hallways, seeing the glass labs on every side of her as she passed by them. There were people dressed in lab coats and forensics uniforms walking in two's or three's as they discussed what they found or studying what was printed out on papers for them. Some, she noticed, would be in a hurry to their next destination as they zoomed right past her. And others almost collided with her a few times as they hurriedly said their apologies and headed off.

The tall Texan woman finally made her way to the office that she was supposed to meet her new supervisor and noticed the door was wide open. Her brilliant green eyes studied the man through her thin sleek bangs. The receptionist was right about the oddities that decorated the office and gazed over to the nameplate with the name that she recognized from her paperwork. Gil Grissom. He loomed over his desk; not too much light illuminated his office except for a single light that did its purpose on his desk to help him study his paperwork. His glasses slouched down the bridge of his nose.

The woman hated to interrupt this busy man, seeing that his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Her hand brushed her long auburn hair out of her face and then lifted up to softly knock on the doorframe. The man's head shot up quickly upon hearing the sound and his frustration of someone interrupting his work turned into a friendly one.

"You made it," he said, gesturing for her to sit down in one of the seats in front of his desk. "Did you have trouble getting here?"

"No, no trouble at all thank you," she said politely. She glanced around his office before taking her seat. "So, do you lead a double life as a CSI and a vampire, Mr. Grissom?" He smirked at her comment and leaned against the back of the seat.

"Maybe," he relayed. Then his eyes glazed over a little as he recalled a quote that came to his mind. "'There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery.'" She looked at him interested, admiring his wisdom. Grissom saw her fascination at his words and then explained, "Joseph Conrad, one of the great English novelists."

"Nicely done," the woman said amused, already liking this man's company. She laid her things on her lap, passing along her folder within his reach. Grissom grasped the manila folder and flipped it open making sure everything was in there. She smirked as she noticed his glasses slid down the bridge of his nose again as he glanced at the documents inside. His blue eyes looked over the spectacles in her direction to study her.

"I've heard so many great things about you from Houston , I am looking forward to having you with us," Grissom stated, satisfied that everything was in order. He placed the folder on his desk.

"And I heard that you're a perfectionist," she remarked with a grin. The corner of Grissom's mouth curled up slightly as she added, "Which is a great challenge that I gladly accept."

"I am called a lot of things, but you'll have to find that out, won't you?" he commented, with his fingertips pressed together and cocking his head to the side. He cleared his throat a little as a sign of a change in subject as he looked back down at the folder she handed to him earlier.

"Since you are new here, I will need a pint of your blood," he insisted, waiting for her to protest like all newbie CSI's do the first day.

"Ah, so you are a vampire, Mr. Grissom," she joked. He was about to explain that he collected it from all new CSI's as one of the regulations but she held up her hand to stop him, then started to roll up her sleeve. "I know the drill."

After the proper procedures, Grissom escorted the woman to the break room, knowing that everyone was there to receive their assignments for the night. The Texan female smirked at the group as she and Grissom gradually approached them, noticing that they were joking around while having a cup of coffee together. The strawberry blonde was acting as a motherly type, breaking them up once in a while. She secretly hoped that she could belong in their little clique in no time. After all, she was a friendly one who got along with most, but she knew that she didn't please everyone either; such is life. The group looked up altogether when they noticed a woman that they did not recognize coming towards them. She was hoping that they knew she was arriving or else this was going to be really awkward. The looks on their faces confirmed her fear; they had no idea.

"Okay, before we get started, I wanted to introduce you to Lynndy Bakey," Grissom gestured towards the new lady. He introduced her to the staff by naming who was who to her so she could get a better idea. The gang all said their greetings and gave her welcoming smiles. Grissom then turned to her. "I'll show you to the locker rooms so you can change." She nodded following him to the direction of the changing room.

The group in the break room turned to each other when they saw it was safe to talk and out of listening range. They all had the same confused look on their faces.

"Did you know anything about this, Cath?" Nick was the first to question, his Texas accent thick with annoyance. Catherine had her arms across her chest and she shrugged her shoulders, giving him the impression that she was just as lost as he was.

"Is she supposed to replace Sara?" Greg daringly asked, not really liking this at all. Sara had just left the team and Grissom was already over it and hiring a replacement. That seemed a little odd.

Warrick then spoke up, his voice deep. "She's probably here to help out. We have been extremely busy as of late and it would be a good thing to have an extra body around here."

"Knowing Grissom, that's probably what it is," Catherine finally chimed in, realizing that must be the case. Grissom had been pulling triple shifts, or so it seemed, since they lost Sara. They all had felt the effects of a missing member of their team and it was affecting them physically and emotionally. They knew that she had to leave before she cracked at an inappropriate time or to a point where she would be unfixable. She needed to take care of herself and they understood that, but it didn't make it any less painful, seeing themselves as a tight knit family. Since Sara's departure, everyone seemed on edge. Having a new person take place of someone that was irreplaceable was just a blow to them.

When Grissom led her to the locker rooms, Lynndy turned around to face him at the doorway. She wanted to speak to him in private and knew this would be the only time to do it before the shift started.

"Mr. Grissom," she started. "Am I to assume that you did not inform your staff of my arrival?"

"I thought it would be better if I did not mention anything to them," he stated. Lynndy was about to question when he continued. "We just lost a member of our staff who was with us for many years. If I told them that you were arriving, they would have assumed that you are to replace her permanently. They are still feeling at a loss with her gone." She could see the hurt in his face a little when he explained this. He was feeling at a loss too, but wasn't saying anything, only speaking in the defense of his colleagues. If anything, it made him more agitated to speak of it.

"Well, you know your team members more than I do so you know what's best, I suppose," Lynndy exasperated. She was warned back at her home lab in Houston that there might be some tension but she wasn't sure exactly what. She was just going to have to try to fit in for the time that she will be here, that much she knew. As long as no one chewed anyone's head off then she could deal with this.

The shift meeting took place when Grissom came back and passed out their slips, explaining who had what before they had a chance to read it. Lynndy had come back to the break room dressed in the blue forensics uniform which conformed to her body nicely and her long brunette hair up in a tight bun. She stood against the doorway with her arms crossed. She could feel the slight tension in the air so she didn't dare come in any more than that. When Grissom passed out a few slips, the members took the small documents and passed by her one at a time, not even taking a second glance. That is, until it was just her and a handsome man in a black vest and jeans across the room from her.

"Nick, I want you to pair up with Lynndy here," Grissom said to him. Nick raised his eyebrow at him but then walked over to see what the little piece of paper had to say; though he knew Grissom would explain it anyway. "A couple of 419's in a crushed vehicle, the police suspect foul play since it did not collide with any other vehicle. Now, Lynndy is a transitional CSI from Houston so she doesn't need to be coached but make sure to let her do some work, got it?"

"Yeah, I got it," he said dejectedly. He was hoping for a solo this time but he had a feeling that when it was just down to the two of them, he was going to be forced to pair up with her. Nick passed by her and she followed. Secretly, Lynndy knew that this was going to be a rough night.

They walked down the hallways together and Nick kept doing side glances at her. She took notice but opted to not say anything. She knew her joking or sarcasm, her best persona traits, probably wouldn't be a good first impression. But then again, it was the only way to break the ice with people sometimes.

"So, you're from Houston, huh?" Nick asked, trying to start up a friendly conversation with her. He still didn't like the fact that he had to deal with a newbie but he didn't want to seem like a total jerk.

"What was your first clue?" she asked sarcastically. "And yes I am. I know that you're from Texas too," she said, proud of her Texas honing skills of picking up certain accents from people. Call it a gift. He eyed her, not sure what to make of this woman.

"Yeah, I grew up in Fort Worth," he shared, giving her a slight smile.

"Glad to have a fellow Texan on board, I would have felt alone," she remarked, letting up on her sarcasm, giving him a small grin.

They headed out to his charcoal Denali and went on their way to their call.

* * *

The Denali drove up to the police cars with their flashing blue and red lights. The firefighters were there also since it was always protocol for them to be present at an accident. The CSI's could see the vehicle against the curb, smashed in the front. It looked to be a red van with an already small nose in the front, the impact making it a lot smaller. The coroner's van could be seen there along with the police officers surrounding the area. You could see the corner taped off with the familiar yellow tape as the passing snail-like traffic slugged by, hoping to get a glimpse of something exciting. 

"Damn lookie-loos," Lynndy muttered under her breath, slightly annoyed. Nick chuckled at her remark, never hearing someone say that before.

They walked up with kits in their grips and gloves that dressed their hands as they strolled over to the onsite homicide detective, Detective Vega. He had a grim look on his face as he saw the approaching CSI's. He felt that he should just give them the run down even though he literally had nothing much to go on.

"Well, you probably already know my answer," Vega said to them, raising his hands in the air slightly.

"Everyone was in the bathroom?" Nick asked, getting a snort from Lynndy. How many times has she heard that before back in her hometown? It was amusing to know they used that joke here too.

"Close, but yeah no one saw anything. I already interviewed the people in the houses around here. The elderly couple here in this house," he pointed to the house in front of the curb where the crash took place, "Were in their bedroom watching television when this occurred but claim they did not hear anything in particular before the crash."

"This is a residential area, so there aren't any security cameras, right?" Lynndy asked the detective. He nodded his head to confirm her theory.

"No sounds of skidding, maybe screaming?" Nick asked, trying to see if he could get more info out of him. The detective shook his head.

"Nothing," Detective Vega replied. "According to eyewitness reports, no one saw another car involved. As far as we know, we either have a hit and miss or a case of poor driving."

"Thanks, Vega," Nick thanked, starting his way towards the wreck with Lynndy tailing right behind him. When they drew closer to the scene, they saw David was already there making his usual notes of the condition of the body. The driver's side door was open so he could take a better look. Upon arriving to the car, it seemed like there wasn't a dead body in there, but then they saw the backside of it on the seat.

"Hey Super Dave," Nick greeted him as they closed in and almost forgot to introduce his partner. "Oh sorry, this is Lynndy, she's new to our team. Lynndy, this is David." Lynndy gave him a small wave as he smiled back, acknowledging her.

"I don't even know why they called you guys out here," David started to say. "But I guess it looks odd since a vehicle just crashed into the curb by itself."

Nick took out his camera that was attached to his shoulder and started taking pictures of the scene.

"Hey, didn't Grissom say for you to not do all of the work?" Lynndy asked, looking annoyed at him. Nick put down the camera and looked in her direction. He cocked an eyebrow at her, looking as annoyed as she was to see if maybe she'd retract that comment. She wasn't going to crack, "That's not gonna work on me, buddy."

"Go right ahead then," he said, handing her the camera so she could take multiple pictures of the scene. Lynndy grabbed the yellow markers and put them down around the vehicle when she had found something new and relative to the scene before snapping more pictures. Nick drew out his flashlight, taking a better look at the body in the driver's seat. It was a male who had fallen to the passenger's side seat and had blood running down his forehead and nose from the impact of the steering wheel. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt so he had fallen down to the other side.

"No air bag, this looks to be a 1985 model," he said, the light shining on the steering wheel to show the blood mark from where the man hit his forehead. It was a slightly different shade than the color interior.

"They didn't have air bags installed in cars then," Lynndy remarked, knowing a little bit about the older makes and models. She walked around towards the back of the car, flashing more pictures of the car. "This is a Toyota LE, before they had the models." Nick looked at her, impressed about her knowledge of vehicles. Lynndy turned to the coroner.

"Are there any signs of drunk driving or illegal substances?" Lynndy asked, glancing at Nick who seemed to still look inside the car to see if there were any bottles or paraphernalia inside.

"Not that I know of, I'll have to send samples to tox back at the lab. DB's are of a male in his 40's. Found a wallet on him, his name is Robert Langwald," David explained, then pointing to the back of the car with his pen. "There is a male child in the back seat, appears to be about the age of 9, most likely the son."

Lynndy bit her bottom lip, hating the fact that a child was involved in this wreck as well. They had focused on the driver that they didn't see the boy in the back. Nick shined his flashlight towards the back seats and they saw that the child was lying face down on the red carpet floor. Obviously, he wasn't wearing a seatbelt either.

"None of them were wearing seatbelts, you'd think they'd know better," Lynndy thought out loud to Nick and shook her head sadly. It probably would have saved their lives if they had. What was sad about this was the child was not taught to put on his belt by his father, which could've saved him.

She started to walk around the car, reaching in her pocket for a flashlight as she took a better look at the vehicle as well. She walked around it towards the passenger's seat side. The beam of the light illuminated on the doors and frame of the car. She flashed the light inside, taking a better look for any type of oddity. The glove compartment was smashed down upon impact. Lynndy shined the flashlight towards there to see if she saw anything. The light beamed a little bit back at her and she knitted her brows, trying to figure out what that could be. Whatever it was, it seemed to move. Her eyes grew wide and she dropped her kit to the ground with a thud, trying to pry open the passenger's side door as hard as she could. The damage done to the car made it difficult to open it without force.

Nick happened to gaze over to her direction at the sound of her straining. He raced over to her side and was wondering what she was doing.

Lynndy answered him before he could utter a word to her. "There's something in there."

Nick dropped his kit quickly to the ground as well and helped her open the door. With their combined strength, they were able to release it and it fell beside them with a loud clang. Suddenly, a little ivory and blood covered hand reached out from underneath the glove compartment.

"We need a paramedic!" Lynndy screamed out, as she and Nick tried to see if they could get the individual out of the car. The firemen came over, one with a crowbar in hand, knowing that the CSI's were trying to save someone inside. The two stood aside letting the firefighters do their job of releasing the person in there. They had to pry the twisted metal in order to get to it. One of the firemen reached in and pulled out the person. It was a tiny body of a wounded girl, her blonde hair matted to her bloody face. Lynndy could see the girl's cheeks as silent tears ran down them while the fireman carried her to the nearing ambulance so they could tend to her. Lynndy sat on the nearest curbside, brushing her arm across her forehead, wiping away some perspiration that had formed. Nick tried to settle the rhythm of his heart mentally, even though he was scared that they would lose the girl. He took notice of the newbie next to him on the curb.

"You okay?" he asked her, feeling sympathy towards the fellow Texan.

"Yeah, I got scared, she could've died in there if we didn't get to her when we did," she said, her accent shining through her anger. "What kind of family doesn't wear seatbelts? She was thrown underneath the glove compartment and got trapped, not a sound coming from her. The rescue team didn't even know she was there."

"This seems to affect you," he took note. "Are you sure you'll-"

"I just dislike stupidity and you see a lot of that on the job," she interrupted, standing up from the curb and knew she had to clear the air after her rant. "I'm sorry, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure there, partner?" he asked, his accent laced in his words. Lynndy chuckled and glanced at him. She nodded; trying to convince him that she was all right.

"Let's get going, we need to process the scene," she told him, grabbing her silver kit and walking towards the opposite way of the scene. "I'll search the perimeters, I'll see if I can find any loose parts that may explain what really happened."

He nodded, grabbing his kit and following suit. He went about his business and kept a glance here and there towards her direction. Maybe he had misjudged the new CSI. After all, he was jumping ahead of himself by harshly judging her. She didn't seem too bad after all. She was professional about all this, even though it seemed to affect her in a way. That's the problem with this job; you cannot let emotions get involved. Easier said than done.

Lynndy scanned the area, with her flashlight as her main source of light, carefully tracing her footsteps. Her eyes scanned the black asphalt for anything in particular. She saw a small black piece of what looked like rubber. Kneeling down, she bagged it in the plastic evidence bag.

"There aren't any tread marks, it doesn't look like he tried to even brake," she shouted towards Nick's direction. Nick squinted a little in her direction, nodding to acknowledge her as he was bagging a few things himself.

"Oh, hold up," she said, nearing another part of the road. She saw a curved tread mark on the asphalt and snapped some pictures of that. "Hey Nick, could you come here for a second?"

Nick stood up from his bent position and walked over to where she was. Lynndy pointed out what she saw in the road. The curve was from the left lane as if trying to make a U-turn but the curve didn't actually complete the U shape, it looked more like a sloppy L shape.

"Do you think this was from the vic's car?" she asked him, pointing her index finger from the curve mark to the direction of the curb.

"Yeah," he involuntarily agreed. He turned his head towards the crushed van as he tried to see if that could be the case.

"So that means, the vic was trying to avoid something, possibly another car or person?" Lynndy theorized, looking at him for acknowledgement.

"Or someone tampered with the vehicle. Could be a lot of things but we won't know until we get the car back to the lab," Nick retorted. Lynndy knitted her brows together, not liking his tone at all and was going to confront him about it until a loud noise interrupted her.

"Speak of the devil," she said, directing their attention to the tow truck that was just coming in to take the car back to the lab for further analysis. Nick went back to where he was to finish up. They basically had collected what they needed for now. There really wasn't much to go on here at the scene. Nick was right; they had to examine the car for any form of tampering to see if that was the cause.

Lynndy stood there contemplating with her arms crossed. She thought they were getting along for a while there but then Nick goes back to being a sourpuss. It was inconceivable that Grissom never told his colleagues that she was arriving because she wasn't getting a nice treatment at all. It was as if she was just being looked down upon as inferior and she didn't like it at all. Letting out a deep sigh, she knew that she was just going to have to ignore the cold shoulder and act as if it doesn't affect her, silently hoping that this'll just blow over and they can start again. Collecting up her kit, she joined Nick towards the Denali and they headed back to the lab.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is © Anthony E Zuiker/CBS. I do not own anything, except for the original character who happens to be my best friend.**

**I know this case that they are working on is a little odd but I wanted to start out with a small case and move to bigger ones. Please read and review!****

* * *

**

The morgue: the very last place anyone ends up. A seemingly cold hearted place with freezing metal tables to place the rigor bodies on to examine. For the CSI's, it was a second home for them to enter and find out the cause of death of the unfortunate victim of a crime; whether it be complicated or simple.

Nick made his way to the morgue to meet up with Doc Robbins. He entered through the double doors dressed in the blue gown they normally wear when entering. Doc Robbins was still hovering over the body of the male child when Nick came in.

"Hey Doc, what do you have for me?" Nick asked.

"Well, the child's name is Bobby Langwald, got a confirmation from the mother. He suffered blunt force trauma to the head," he started out. "You said he wasn't wearing a seatbelt?"

"Yeah, found him on the floor of the vehicle," Nick informed the chief medical examiner.

"Well no surprise there, no signs of bruising due to a restraint on the chest," he said, indicating the chest of the boy was free of contusions. He then turned Nick's attention to the front of the head. "The skull was fractured, possibly due to the impact of hitting the seat in front of him." Nick pressed his lips slightly together to form a thin line, hating to see a child involved in such a tragedy.

"Now the adult male," Doc Robbins indicated to the other corpse there in the morgue. Nick had a hunch.

"Let me guess, blunt force trauma to the head due to the victim hitting the steering wheel?"

"No, COD is the axis of the cervical spinal column is broken," he told him. Doc Robbins then gestured for him to follow him to the x-rays. Nick saw the break in the spine that connected the skull to the spinal column.

"Neck was snapped in half," he summarized with his arms crossed, seeing the separation in the x-ray.

"In a sense, but there's more to it," Doc Robbins pointed out on the x-ray photograph and narrated his speech, "The adult male had the axis surgically merged to the third cervical vertebra, possibly from a previous accident. In most cases, this is done to heal fractures properly so that there is no risk of paralysis. Unfortunately, because of this procedure, the spine is vulnerable. So when the accident occurred, the victim's neck cracked like a twig from the force of impact."

"Merging of the vertebrae? I've never even heard of this process," Nick admitted, inwardly kicking himself for not knowing about this before.

"Don't worry, not many people know about it. It's a long technical term called 'Spinal Fusion,'" the doctor sarcastically said making Nick smile a little. "These days though, they use lasers to correct the fractures. This man had this process done many years ago before that was an option. Basically, the two vertebrae are fused together so that the spine fracture can heal in the correct position, however it is permanent and it limits the mobility of the neck movement from side to side. I'm surprised he was able to drive-"

"Because he wouldn't have been able to check his blind spot," Nick finished, his accent shining a little more. "So even if the victim was wearing a seatbelt, this would've happen to him anyway?"

"Yes, the force of the crash would've broken the spine at the fused area regardless," Doc Robbins answered. Nick turned to him.

"So do you think this was just an unfortunate accident?" he asked.

"That's your job, but I believe that someone knew about this man's condition," Doc Robbins admitted. Nick raised an eyebrow at him.

"Thanks, Doc," he said, reeling this new information in his head as he exited the morgue.

* * *

Lynndy walked down the long white hallways of the Desert Palms Hospital as she made her way to the reception desk. Before arriving, she had changed into a nice set of casual clothes with her badge clipped to the belt loop of her jeans. Her mind had been reeling all night and she wanted to make absolute sure that the little girl was going to be okay. It still haunted her to see that image of her limp body in that metal death trap. 

"Can I help you?" the reception nurse asked when the other woman arrived.

"Yes, my name is Lynndy Bakey, I'm from the Hou- err Las Vegas Crime Lab," she showed her badge to the nurse to verify. "There was a little girl brought in from a car accident, her last name is Langwald, do you know where she is?"

"Yes, Miss Bakey she was taken to Room 503," the nurse told her, directing her the way of the room.

Lynndy scanned all of the rooms that she passed by to see if she was any closer to her destination. She found the room and walked inside. There was a woman there with the girl, most likely her mother. The little girl was hooked up to some tubes and had bandages around her right arm and head. The child was asleep and Lynndy knew it was from the meds they probably had given her. She wanted to make her presence known, so she slowly walked in until the other woman saw her.

"Hi, I'm Lynndy Bakey from the Las Vegas Crime Lab," she introduced herself to the lady.

"I'm Allison's mother," she said, her face filled with grief and worry. Who could blame her, she just lost the most important men in her life and her daughter was in the hospital.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Lynndy said to her, it wasn't the most comforting thing to say, but it was protocol for her to let the mother know she cared.

"Thank you," she said, holding back the tears that were threatening to fall. "I just can't believe this happened, it's all so sudden."

"How is she doing?" Lynndy asked, scared to find out the results of the girl's condition.

"She's stable, she has a fracture on her right arm and a slight concussion," she said. "They gave her some heavy medicine so she could sleep. They told me that she was in shock when she got here but they said that she's going to be fine."

"I'm glad to hear that," Lynndy said, slightly relieved. She would have to get the statement from the fragile girl later. The mother turned to the woman and looked at her confused.

"You said you were from the crime lab? Not to sound rude, but what would you be doing here? This was just an accident," she questioned.

"Well, your husband's car crashed into a curb and there was no signs of another vehicle involved, so we suspect that there might be foul play involved," she informed her. She didn't want to deal another blow to the vulnerable woman, but she had to explain why they were investigating.

"But my husband was a good man! Who would want to hurt him? Hurt my children?" she strained her voice, choking back tears as much as she could. Lynndy bit her bottom lip slightly, for she had no answer to that.

"Do you know what your husband was doing with your children?" Lynndy asked, trying to keep as professional as much as she could.

"He was picking them up from Sunday school. I asked him to pick up a few things from the store on the way. He sometimes takes forever at the store because the kids love to keep him there. I was at home preparing dinner for some friends who were coming over to visit," she explained.

"Ma'am, do you remember if there was anything wrong with the car before your husband left?"

"No, not that I know of, my husband was pretty good at keeping the car in working order, if there was anything wrong with it he would have told me," she said. The woman then looked at the CSI questioningly. "Do you think that someone did something to our car?"

"We are still investigating but it is a possibility," Lynndy told her, swallowing hard to ask the next question but it was routine. "Do you know anyone who would want to hurt your husband?"

"No! He was friendly to everyone, no one hated him," she said, letting the tears fall and grabbing a tissue from a nearby box, blowing her nose. "Miss Bakey, please, can I just be alone with my daughter?"

"Yes, of course, thank you for your time Mrs. Langwald, I'll keep in touch," she said, getting up from her chair and walking out. She knew that was coming. She had to do her job and there were always cases where it is so severe that no one wants to give statements. The one question she wanted to ask will have to wait for a later time; the one about the seatbelts that could have saved their lives. She had taken notes of what she got and started to head back towards the hospital exit.

* * *

Lynndy walked into the examining room and found Nick there, looking at all of the pictures from the scene on the illuminated table. The tire treads that were found in the asphalt were printed on clear plastic so that he could match the tire marks. Nick looked up from what he was doing to see her walking in. 

"So what did you find?" Lynndy asked him. They needed to report to each other to fill in the facts that they found separately.

Nick did a double take at the new CSI. She had changed from the plain uniform to something more comfortable and casual. He was admiring this Texan woman's beauty, especially when she leaned against the table with her hands to look at the pictures and her hair fell forward. Nick had to clear his throat in order to snap himself out of his hormone-induced trance.

"The child, Bobby Langwald, suffered blunt force trauma to the head from the back of the seat. Interesting fact about Robert Langwald, he had surgery years back that fused his neck vertebrae together so that he had limited mobility of it. He shouldn't have been driving since he wasn't able to look properly. Anyway, since he had that surgery done, his neck became susceptible to breaking, so he would have died even if he did wear a seatbelt."

"I went to go pay the little girl a visit at Desert Palms, her mother was there," Lynndy started. "Her name is Allison, they say she's going to be fine but she was in a medicated sleep so I couldn't talk to her. I spoke with the mother, very distraught, she doesn't know of anyone who would hurt her husband and she doesn't seem the type to tamper with a vehicle or anything."

"The tire mark on the road matches the vic's tire," he said, placing the tire mark over the tire in the photos they took.

"I figured as much," Lynndy mentioned. Nick did a quick glance at her before continuing his gaze over the photos and files on the table.

"And tox results came back; the victim was clean so this wasn't due to intoxication" Nick told her. Lynndy nodded kind of glad that wasn't the case. But now they needed to figure out if this really was a premeditated crime or something that just went really wrong.

"Ready to take a look at the car?" she asked, rubbing her hands together slightly. Nick saw this gesture and smirked at her. He never saw a woman so eager to get to a bashed up car to get down and dirty.

"Yeah, let's get changed and I'll meet you in the garage," he said.

* * *

Nick and Lynndy opened the glass doors to the garage in the lab. They were both dressed in the blue forensics uniforms to go through the victim's car in hopes to find out if the car was indeed tampered with or if this was the case of unusual driving. The van was propped up a foot above the ground so that they could take a look underneath. 

"Man, I would not want to own one of these vans… it's such a safety hazard," Nick remarked, taking a good look at the overall view of the van in front of him. He placed a few blue towels on the side table just in case they got too dirty. Lynndy was also taking a glance at the van, realizing that she worked with one of these before.

"Tell me about it, do you know where the engine is?" Lynndy asked, hiding the smirk that was forcing itself to appear on her face. "It's underneath the driver's seat."

"Are you kidding me?" he asked, trying to cover up his shock. She lifted up the driver's side seat and lo and behold the engine was staring right at him. She was secretly admiring the fact that she impressed the other CSI, maybe it was a good thing to show him that she really knows her stuff.

"Don't tell me you didn't know that! And look, the battery is in the back seat on the floor." Lynndy told him, proud that she knew this. Nick followed her as they went to the back seat and she lifted the carpet flap to show him. "That's why this van is so compact in the front, well used to be, because the components of the car are underneath everything else."

"Just a moving time bomb," he remarked, getting an agreement from his partner.

"That's why they don't make them like this anymore," Lynndy stated, walking over to grab the red creeper from the side of the garage and placed it down on the ground, getting ready to lie down on it. Nick watched her, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Are you sure you want to go underneath the car?" he asked, not sure if that was a good idea. "I mean, I could do that and you can have the pleasure of ripping the interior apart."

"Oh please, I've done this numerous times before," she told him. "But you can have the fun of slashing the furniture apart." She sat down on the creeper and then laid down, pushing her strong legs to crawl underneath the vehicle. She had her flashlight out and scanned the different parts of the car, looking for any type of defect. Her eyes took her to the belt that was near the front of the car.

"The power steering belt snapped, but it doesn't look like it was cut, the ends are jagged," she took note as she examined the chassis.

"If the power steering broke before the accident occurred then it would have been like driving a Mack truck," Nick observed.

"But that shouldn't make it impossible to drive the car," Lynndy told him. She wheeled herself out from underneath the car and stood up so she could look at her partner. He was sitting on the lower step of the van's back seat. She instinctively wiped the moisture on her forehead with her black gloved hand.

Nick snickered at her and she looked at him dumbfounded. "What?"

"You have a lovely oil mark across your forehead," Nick said with a grin as he grabbed a towel for her and threw it in her general direction. She caught it and gave him a smirk.

"What? It's the new trend! Didn't you know?" she sarcastically remarked, taking the towel and wiping the top of her forehead.

"Sorry, haven't been keeping up with 'Grease Monkey Weekly,'" Nick threw back at her.

"Oh ha ha," she said, now done with the towel and threw it back at him full force as he snickered at her still. He caught it as it flew towards his face pretty fast. Lynndy looked back at the overview of the van and furrowed her brows with a sigh, back in her professional state again.

"This doesn't make sense because the car turned left in an attempt to make a U-turn but it ended up crashing into the curb instead. It seems like we are looking into the matters of the vic avoiding something, there must have been another car involved and it just drove off of the scene," she mentioned going back to her original theory. Nick thought it over as well.

"Or the vic couldn't control the car, freaked out and tried to get off of the main road, resulting in hitting the curb," Nick theorized.

"The belt could've ripped when the vehicle was making the turn, not beforehand," Lynndy told him raising an eyebrow at him. She could sense that he was trying to go with one theory and not keeping an open mind on what the evidence was telling him.

"There has been no records of the belt breaking after a car accident, that tells me that the belt was the main cause of this," he told her, still standing his ground on what he believed was the story. She placed her hands on her hips, getting really annoyed with him now.

"Why won't you agree to another car being involved?" Lynndy asked, putting him on the spot. Nick looked at her angrily, just as annoyed as she was.

"Because there was only one set of skid marks that belonged to the vic's vehicle, there was no evidence of transfer from another vehicle present on the van, and the power steering was snapped. The man was able to pick up his kids without any trouble until that belt snapped. When that happens, you lose control of the car even if for a moment. This was just an unfortunate mishap." Nick was obviously getting peeved because he knew he was right and she just wouldn't admit the fact.

"We need to look at all the possibilities, Nick," she told him, keeping a stern look on her face. He walked over to her, their faces just inches away from each other as if they were about to have a brawl. Lynndy's green eyes bore a hole in his brown ones.

"Well, maybe I don't need you on this case, it's a no-brainer Lynndy, you know that as well as I do," Nick snapped, irritation evident in his voice.

"You keep having your fantasy of a story and you're only getting angry at me because I am not agreeing with you," Lynndy spat towards him, not liking his tone at all.

"Why are you even here? We can do this on our own," Nick said, venom laced in his words. No more, no more was Lynndy going to take this from someone who thought he was better than her.

"Obviously you can't since Grissom called me here to help out! I came all the way from Houston to answer the call from your supervisor who was looking for a top rated CSI to help out with some of the cases you guys have been shoved into! I am not replacing your former member, I'm here temporarily! If you don't want to associate with me, fine, but I am here to do my job and give any help that is needed."

Nick was taken aback by her words. He didn't realize that she wasn't going to replace Sara permanently, even though it really seemed that way. With Grissom keeping it a secret, he didn't know what to think about the whole situation. He didn't know what to say to her.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No, save it Nick, you just don't like change and here I am walking into your workplace uninvited and you treat me like dirt, I don't need this crap! I deserve to be treated better," she said firmly, throwing down the towel used to wipe her hands and she threw open the door of the garage and left Nick standing there.

Lynndy didn't really know where to go since she left in a huff. She saw the break room and entered it, grabbing a Styrofoam cup and the coffee pot, pouring herself some of the aromatic brew.

She didn't even notice that there was someone in there until she turned around. She recognized him before in the shift meeting with his chocolate skin and piercing green eyes. He was studying the case files possibly from the case he was working on. Avoiding human contact, she took a seat across the table from him, taking a small sip from the hot brew. Warrick noticed someone taking a seat and looked up from his paperwork.

"Hey," he greeted, his voice sounding deeper from fatigue. "How's that case you and Nick are working on?" She took another sip of the coffee, not really wanting to talk to anyone hence why she sat away from him.

"Why don't you ask him?" she snapped at him. Warrick raised an eyebrow at her and she softened. This guy was being nice to her and she was putting the anger from the spat with Nick onto him.

"I'm sorry, it's going fine," she apologized, not getting into detail about the case.

"Okay," he said, leaving it at that. He resumed his studying of the files, thinking that she might be better off in silence since she seemed agitated. Her eyes gazed upon him.

"So what case did you get?" she asked, curious. She wrapped her fingers around the cup tighter. Warrick looked up at her as if she broke his concentration again.

"Oh, a gruesome murder involving a family of three," he said sadly. "Lots of blood and not enough evidence and it's just not adding up, I was just reviewing some of the files to see if we missed anything."

"So in other words, you're taking a break but you look like you're working?" Lynndy asked, smiling at him. He chuckled, knowing there was more to this woman than meets the eye. He licked his lips slightly.

"Yeah," he admitted, throwing his pen down on the table and leaned back against the seat. "These double shifts are killer sometimes."

"Tell me about it," she agreed. "I think it's just protocol for us to be worked to death like horses. Just keep adding hitches to slow us down."

Warrick chuckled at her remark. He was starting to like this Texas woman, she seemed all right. Lynndy swallowed the last of the now cold coffee and threw the cup away in the nearest trashcan. She waved at the man as she left the break room to go back to the locker rooms to wash up and change into some regular clothes.

* * *

Lynndy sighed as she stood outside of Grissom's office, staring at the closed door in front of her, trying to gain the courage to talk to him. She knocked softly, wondering if he even heard that knock at all. She was about to rap again when she heard Grissom's voice on the other side telling her to enter. Turning the knob of the door, she entered his lair, seeing him at his desk with the usual paperwork. 

"Yes?" he asked simply, trying to get some words out of her mouth since she was standing there, looking at him and rubbing her hands slightly in nervousness.

"Mr. Grissom, I came here to inform you that the case that you assigned to me and Nick seems to be a case of a mishap and not a crime," she started. "We are still investigating the evidence at the moment."

"Fine, but is this really why you came to see me?" he asked, knowing there was more to it from her body language.

"Well, since the case is coming to a close, Mr. Grissom, I will have no choice but to-"

"Go back to the crime scene," Nick interrupted, rushing into the office. Lynndy turned to him confused. Nick stuttered a little bit. "Um, we need to go back to the crime scene, your theory might be right. I believe there was another car involved."

Grissom raised an eyebrow at Nick and then at Lynndy. She didn't know what Nick was up to but she sighed, guessing that she would have to talk to the hot headed Texan to settle things.

"Right, goodbye Grissom," she said, heading towards the office exit and Nick followed, closing the door behind her.

"What are you doing?" she hastily asked, before they took a step further.

"I'm sorry, ok? Just don't do anything stupid because of me," he told her, hoping that it would change her mind and make her stay. "I flipped out and I was wrong, can we just," he hesitated. "Can we please just get back to the case? I promise I'll be nicer. I'll buy you breakfast as a truce." Lynndy cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Why did you interrupt me while I was trying to report back to Grissom on our findings?" she asked, confused. Now it was Nick's turn to be confused.

"I thought you were going to tell him you were leaving," he confessed. "After that spat we had back in the garage, I thought you wanted to go back to Houston."

"Please, as much as it would make you happy, I am not that weak," she started to say. "It takes more than that to get me to leave."

"Oh," was all Nick said, he was a little dumbfounded. Nick then looked down at the case file in his hand and remembered what he really came to tell her.

"I called Desert Palms Hospital and they said that Allison is awake, maybe she can tell us what happened," Nick said. Lynndy's eyes grew and she and Nick went in the direction of the Denali to pay the little girl another visit.

* * *

They saw the girl in the hospital bed and she looked a lot better after her sleep. The mother was there but she looked like she was about to go somewhere when the CSI's arrived. The mother recognized the woman from earlier but not the man from the slight confusion on her face. 

"Mrs. Langwald, this is my partner, Nick Stokes," Lynndy introduced, Nick giving the other woman a nod as she did the same. "We would like to talk to your daughter, ask her a few questions if that's all right with you."

"Sure, I'm just going to get something from the cafeteria, the nurses say I should eat too," the mother said with a slight smile. She passed by them as they strolled into the hospital room, taking the few chairs that were there.

"Allison, I'm Lynndy and this is Nick, we're here to ask you about what happened," Lynndy said to her, trying to be as gentle as possible with the frail girl. Allison nodded, understanding. She didn't want to recall it because she knew her father and brother were gone. It was all still a shock to her and she didn't even cry when she tried to remember exactly what happened.

"My Daddy was driving down the street and there was another car coming from the side," she started her story.

"Which side, honey?" Nick asked, trying to get a better detail. The girl pointed her left arm to the side.

"Okay, then what happened?" Lynndy coaxed on.

"Daddy didn't see it until he was about to hit, so he turned the car so he wouldn't hit it and he hit the sidewalk. We were going so fast."

Lynndy didn't want to rub it in that she was right. But she was satisfied to hear it coming from the little girl's mouth. Little kids wouldn't lie, they are only taught that in years to come. Secretly, she was glad that this wasn't an act of crime.

"Thank you, sweetie, you get some rest now, ok?" she asked her, getting a slow nod from the still tired girl. The mother came back in the room as if on cue. The partners came up to her so that they were away from the daughter.

"Mrs. Langwald, I just wanted to tell you this as a precaution and I hope you don't find me rude. Your husband and your kids were not wearing seatbelts at the time of the accident," Nick started to tell her before Lynndy did in her own way. But the mother held up her hand.

"I know what you're going to say," she started. "I had told my husband time and time again about that. I had taught my children about seatbelts but any time they rode with their father, they chose not to wear them since he didn't, you know how kids are. But rest assure, I will take care of my daughter and teach her the right thing."

The CSI's nodded then taking their leave as Mrs. Langwald entered fully into the room to be by her daughter's side. When Lynndy and Nick were out of the room and heading down the long white hallways, Nick shoved his hands in his jean pockets and looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Aren't you going to rub it in my face, Miss Bakey?" he asked, feeling stupid for sticking to his hypothesis instead of looking at the evidence and trying to beat her out of their lab.

"No, Mr. Stokes," she said, amused they were calling each other formally. "First off, I'm not like you, we are here to do this as a team. That's the important part. Second, I believe we were both right. This was an unfortunate accident and not a crime. Overall, we both win."

Nick smirked at her. He shouldn't have been so hard on her. But he was also impressed that she stood her ground and not letting another hot headed fellow Texan push her away from what she really loved to do.

"So, how about that breakfast, Mr. Stokes?" she asked, keeping him to his word. He looked at her confused but then realization hit him hard.

"Oh! I forgot about that," he realized what she meant, placing his hand on his forehead as if that was a headache he wanted to forget.

"Uh huh, forgetting it on purpose you mean," she said playfully.

"No, I'll take you to this diner we go to all the time, they have some real good home cookin'," he told her.

"Never thought there'd be home cookin' in Vegas," she said sarcastically. He laughed at her words, knowing it sounded odd in a city of sin like this. They walked down towards their vehicle and headed off to their destination, glad their shift was over for the day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is © Anthony E Zuiker/CBS. I do not own anything, except for the original character who happens to be my best friend.**

**A/N: This chapter is a little slow and not much evidence but it's sort of on purpose. I hope you will read and review anyway!**

* * *

Rain pounded on the illuminated city of Las Vegas. The weather had changed drastically for the fall season. Usually in the desert such as this city would have hot days and warm nights. The chill of the night cut through the rain, making it spray in multiple directions. A black car could be seen pulling up into a parking lot garage, the headlights beamed and the wipers on full blast as it made its way into an empty parking spot. The engine killed and the lights turned off as a hooded figure opened the door and came out of the vehicle.

As the figure made its way through the parking structure, the patter of the rain started to subside to a trickle. As the figure came towards the front door of the building, its hand rose up to pull down the hood that covered the head.

"Figures," Lynndy said to herself as she pulled her long hair out from underneath the hooded poncho she was wearing to make herself more comfortable. Normally she liked the rain, but she knew that it had a mind of its own when it came to her being out in it.

She made her way to the locker rooms and entered it. Her eyes were drawn to what was hanging from her designated locker. It was the official CSI black vest for Vegas with her last name sewed on the upper left side. She was a little shocked upon seeing that; she didn't think they would keep her for a while. A heavy sigh drew from beneath her; guess she was going to be there longer than she thought. She proceeded to take off her heavy sweater and to change into the outfit she was going to wear for the night.

* * *

The crew were sitting around the break room table with the exception of Nick, who was sitting on top of the table with his feet planted on the seat of a chair. Lynndy wasn't sure what was going on. Was she not informed about some kind of important meeting? When she got within listening distance, she heard that he was telling a story to them; as if he was the camp leader sharing a scary story to the other campers around a small fire. The gestures of his hands creating the story as he described.

Lynndy was slightly amused as she stood against the doorway, crossing her arms. _All we need are marshmallows and we're good to go_, she thought to herself with a smirk planted on her face as she listened in to the rest of his tale even though he was halfway through it.

"It was dusk when the hunter drove into the barn and unhitched his horse. The horse snorted in fear, sensing the presence of Raw Head in the loft. Wondering what was disturbing his usually-calm horse, the hunter looked around and saw a large pair of eyes staring down at him from the darkness in the loft.

"The hunter frowned, thinking it was one of the local kids fooling around in his barn.

"'Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big eyes fer?' he snapped, thinking the kids were trying to scare him with some crazy mask.

"'To see your grave,' Raw Head rumbled very softly. The hunter snorted irritably and put his horse into the stall.

"'Very funny. Ha, ha,' The hunter said. When he came out of the stall, he saw Raw Head had crept forward a bit further. Now his luminous yellow eyes and his bears claws could clearly be seen.

"'Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big claws fer?' he snapped. 'You look ridiculous.'

"'To dig your grave…' Raw Head intoned softly, his voice a deep rumble that raised the hairs on the back of the hunter's neck. He stirred uneasily, not sure how the crazy kid in his loft could have made such a scary sound. If it really was a crazy kid.

"Feeling a little spooked, he hurried to the door and let himself out of the barn. Raw Head slipped out of the loft and climbed down the side of the barn behind him. With nary a rustle to reveal his presence, Raw Head raced through the trees and up the path to a large, moonlight rock. He hid in the shadow of the huge stone so that the only things showing were his gleaming yellow eyes, his bear claws, and his raccoon tail.

"When the hunter came level with the rock on the side of the path, he gave a startled yelp. Staring at Raw Head, he gasped: 'You nearly knocked the heart right out of me, you crazy kid! Land o' Goshen, what have you got that crazy tail fer?'

"'To sweep your grave…' Raw Head boomed, his enchanted voice echoing through the woods, getting louder and louder with each echo. The hunter took to his heels and ran for his cabin. He raced passed the old well-house, passed the wood pile, over the rotting fence and into his yard. But Raw Head was faster. When the hunter reached his porch, Raw Head leapt from the shadows and loomed above him. The hunter stared in terror up at Raw Head's gleaming yellow eyes in the ugly razorback hogshead, his bloody bone skeleton with its long bear claws, sweeping raccoon's tail and his gleaming sharp panther teeth.

"'Land o' Goshen, what have you got those big teeth fer?' he gasped desperately, stumbling backwards from the terrible figure before him.

"'To eat you up, like you wanted to eat me!' Raw Head roared, descending upon the good-for-nothing hunter. The murdering thief gave one long scream in the moonlight. Then there was silence, and the sound of crunching.

"Nothing more was ever seen or heard of the lazy hunter who lived on the ridge. His horse also disappeared that night. But sometimes folks would see Raw Head roaming through the forest in the company of his friend Old Betty. And once a month, on the night of the full moon, Raw Head would ride the hunter's horse through town, wearing the old man's blue overalls over his bloody bones with a hole cut-out for his raccoon tail. In his bloody, bear-clawed hands, he carried his raw, razorback hogshead, lifting it high against the full moon for everyone to see," Nick finished his the tale. The few guys around the table breathed out, obviously enjoying the story since they were in suspense until the end. But one person wasn't as affected.

"That story sounds like a bad combination of Little Red Riding Hood and a cheesy ghost story," Lynndy snorted.

"Hey, I didn't make it up," Nick said seriously. "It's a true story, handed down in my family." He thought that she'd at least understand about family tales back where they come from.

"Oh please," Lynndy scoffed, unfolding her arms. Warrick looked up at her, she seemed taller since he was sitting down.

"Aw come on," Warrick egged her on. "It's All Hallows Eve, everyone here gets into the spirit every year."

"I hate Halloween," Lynndy seethed. "It's when all the pranks and crazy people go on the ultimate high." Nick was slightly amused at how much a person could hate a holiday.

"I don't know, getting to dress up in a scary costume, go trick-or-treating, and sharing terrifying tales sounds pretty good to me," Nick shared his thoughts on it.

"You mean it only gives the creeps a reason to cause chaos," she told him.

"Yeah, that too," Warrick agreed, getting a smirk out of her. "Glad I didn't dress up and try to scare you, I hate to think what you would've done to me." Lynndy snorted at that.

"Yeah, just try, I don't scare easily," she shared with the guys then changed the subject as she straightened up a little. "Well, if this city is a little bit like where I come from most of the cases tonight are going to be false alarms."

"And if that's the case, than we can call it early tonight," Nick told her.

"That'd be a rare occurrence," Warrick mumbled.

All fun and games soon ended silently when their supervisor came in with the assignments for the night in all his seriousness. The grins soon fell from some of their faces as they all sat down comfortably. Nick quickly hopped off the table and into an empty seat, almost falling out of the chair in doing so. He knew Grissom saw what he did but gave him an evil eye above the rim of his glasses instead of bringing it up.

"Nick and Warrick, there is a 419 off of the I-15, looks like a body dump," he told them, handing them the slip with the information on it. They proceeded to leave the break room to leave for their location.

"Lynndy, I want you to pair up with Greg here," Grissom pointed to the dirty blonde who was sitting in a chair. Greg had been so quiet and keeping to himself that it seemed like he wasn't even there until Grissom said his name. Greg's tense eyes shot up at the mention of him; he didn't look entirely happy when his name was called to be paired up with the transitional CSI. He reluctantly got up from his chair to reach over for the slip with their case information scribbled on it; Grissom didn't hand it over so easily.

"I want you guys to handle a 402 that was called in just a few minutes ago," Grissom started. "The firefighters were able to put out the fire but they discovered a body."

"Arson… so it was a house?" Lynndy asked, thinking this was going to be simple. Greg grasped the document out of Grissom's hand finally to take a better look at it.

"No, a wooden stake," Grissom informed. Greg and Lynndy looked at each other confused as Grissom made his immediate leave down the hallway to let them be perplexed together.

* * *

The two forensics walked over the scene in the darkest part of the seemingly deserted place. Their footsteps echoed as their feet shuffled through the dirt and rocks beneath them. The flashlights were their source of light as they walked, the beams rocked back and forth as they both scanned for anything relevant.

The firefighters were leaving the scene when they had arrived to leave the rest of the work to the CSI's. As they drew closer to the fire source, the smell of burned wood was thick in the air. As they approached the scorched area, they finally came to realize what they were actually looking at. Grissom was right; it was a wooden stake with a body tied to it, which was now burned beyond recognition.

"Anyone up for a barbeque?" Greg said absentmindedly.

"I usually like mine well done, but I think it's a little overdone for my taste," Lynndy joked. Greg glanced at her but not a slight smirk reached his face. She assumed he didn't find it that funny.

"This might have been a Halloween prank gone wrong," Greg finally spoke after surveying the scene some more, taking pictures all around.

"Probably, but unfortunately it's still a case until we can prove otherwise," Lynndy said, snapping on the latex gloves on her hands as she searched the ground for anything diminutive. Greg glanced out of the corner of his eye at her irritated as he watched her pick up a few items to put in the plastic bags then back to the scene. She stood up and took out her flashlight from inside her vest to take a better look around.

"Most of the area is charred, not much left of the body either," Lynndy mentioned as the beam of her flashlight waved back and forth along the wooden stake and what was left of the body on it.

Upon closer inspection, Greg noticed that the body was tied with heavy duty chicken wire to keep the body in place on the stake so it wouldn't fall off. They couldn't touch or move the body since the coroner hadn't shown up yet.

"Whoever did this wanted the victim to keep to the stake," he told his partner. "Heavy wiring was tied around the body."

"God, anytime the firefighters are called, the scene always becomes a forensics nightmare," Lynndy walked around the muddy area, seeing all the ground was flooded with water and pieces of hay that seemed to be used to start the fire.

"Found some footprints here, the firefighters said that they didn't step in this area," Greg said, kneeling down to the set of prints that he found in the only spread of dirt not touched by the hose water. Greg knelt down to it and did his thing of collecting the imprint via casting plaster and a metal frame.

"Hey, I found something interesting right here," Lynndy mentioned as she knelt down to it. She wasn't sure if it was real evidence but she took pictures of it anyway. With her gloved hand, she picked it up so that it was eye level with her. After Greg was finished what he was doing, he headed over to where she was to take a look at it.

"Do you think someone left their costume here?" she asked, holding a black witch's hat in her hand.

"Probably belongs to a real witch, you never know on a night like this," Greg said sarcastically.

"Okay smartass, then where is her broom?" she directed at him.

"Must've been included in the bonfire with the other brooms left by the witches who burned this person," he said, not really thinking about his answer as he went to the stake to examine it. Lynndy raised an eyebrow at his answer. Obviously, he was finding this all surreal. It seemed like a bad prank gone wrong but they had to treat it as murder until proven otherwise. She sighed, hoping this wasn't going to be a fluke just like the previous case she had with Nick.

Greg collected some of the hay that was still dry on the ground to see if they could find out what kind of accelerant was used to light the bonfire.

"Hey guys," a familiar voice called. "Sorry I'm late."

"Don't worry about it, Dave," Greg told him. "We didn't touch the body."

"Like we wanted to," Lynndy mentioned. They both walked over to the body to join with David. He examined it and didn't say anything to the CSI's since it was apparent what happened to the person.

"Do you know if the person was killed then burned?" Lynndy asked, curious.

"I really can't tell, it's too dark to see," David revealed. A few men came over with a gurney to help with the body. They dismounted it from the stake and took it away in a bag.

"So much for getting an answer now," Greg said.

There wasn't anything else they could find at the scene so they called it and packed up their stuff. They both were equally frustrated at this; it was going to be harder than they thought.

* * *

Greg was on his way to the morgue to meet up with Doc Robbins. As he walked down the hallways, he could remember the first time he had to watch an autopsy as part of his CSI proficiency. Feeling the sense of nausea, he stood there watching the dismemberment at hand but never once needed to empty the contents of his stomach like most people would do, not only from the smell but from the sights. Now it was getting to be second nature to smell the foul odor of decomposition from a body. In this case, he was going to smell the stench of burned human flesh.

Another painful memory came to mind as he thought about seeing the body again for the results. He remembered when he was in a hospital watching a woman who set herself on fire being treated by the doctors. They peeled away at the dead flesh and skin to take care of what was left of the healthy tissue. It was an awful sight that was etched in his memory forever. He felt the sadness wash over him as he recalled the scene he saw then. This time though, it was on a dead body. For some reason, he was happy the person who was burned in this case was dead, for if the person lived, they would have to suffer for the rest of their life, as that other woman did.

He opened the double doors to see Doc Robbins at the computer, inputting notes on findings and such. Doc Robbins raised his head to see the familiar face.

"Hey Doc," Greg greeted, walking over to him.

"Hello Greg," Doc Robbins greeted back, using his cane to push himself up out of the chair and towards the drawer that held the body he knew that the CSI wanted to see. He reached in and slowly pulled the unrecognizable body they found at the scene. Greg scrunched his nose, still not used to that kind of smell yet.

"I hate Halloween, people think they can just get away with everything, even murder," the medical examiner stated out of nowhere. "You know, Halloween was perceived as the night during which the division between the world of the living and the otherworld was blurred so spirits of the dead and inhabitants from the underworld were able to walk free on the earth. It was believed necessary to dress as a spirit or otherworldly creature when venturing outdoors to blend in, hence why people dress up in costumes even to this day." Greg snorted at him the telling the facts about Halloween.

"You sound like Grissom," Greg joked with a grin.

"Probably because he told me," Doc Robbins relayed. Greg's grin disappeared as he got back to the serious nature of the job and to get any details from the medical examiner.

"Anyway, basing on the pelvic size, the body is female. COD is obviously third degree burns all over," he narrated. "There is no indication of blunt force trauma. I sent a sample of the bone marrow to DNA to see if anything shows up but there is just too much fire damage done to the tissues and the rest of the body."

"Thanks," he said disappointedly, then started to head out of the doors. He shook his head slightly, he had a bad feeling that the doctor wouldn't find much on the body. Upon first look at it, he knew. There was a small hope that maybe he would find some other type of COD on the body but as the doctor said, there were none. So now they needed to see if anything comes up on the system as to who this person may be and what else they could find in the evidence they collected.

* * *

In the break room, Greg was sitting at the oval table, stirring a small straw in his cup of hot coffee. The results involving the case he was working on with Lynndy were still pending so he had to wait it out. He had the case file in front of him, reviewing what he could out of the little evidence that they had found. He was getting frustrated.

"Hey stranger," a feminine voice called to him. Greg recognized the voice before he even lifted his head up to greet her with his eyes.

"Hey," he greeted back, showing the signs of a slight smile in a long time. He stared at the female figure towards the counter making herself a cup of coffee, admiring her curves and long brunette hair. After she mixed in the sweetener and cream, she joined him at the table giving him a grin.

"Are you okay? You've been grouchy," she observed.

"I'm not grouchy, just being professional, Jen," he said to her. Jennifer cocked an eyebrow at him. She and Greg had been secretly dating for a few months. It was hard sometimes with the hours they worked and the time off they barely got. It was like fate when she accepted the job as a DNA tech, the job that Greg had for a long time before he became a CSI. He had helped her with getting her acquainted with the labs and everything. They noticed each other and that was basically the gist of it.

Her hands gripped slightly on the hot mug as she looked at him sternly. "You need to lighten up, Greg, you've been way too serious lately," she told him, knowing it wasn't something he wanted to hear but she said it anyway. She hated seeing the frown he put on most of the time when he wandered the labs.

"It's just been hard with Sara leaving," he confessed. Jennifer frowned, she had a feeling he was still missing the former CSI.

"I didn't know her long but I know that you two were very close friends," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I'm on this case with this woman from the south and I've just been uncomfortable with it all."

"Oh, I think I saw her wondering through the labs earlier," she remembered and when she looked at him she realized something. "You think she's replacing Sara?"

"I don't know, I really hope not," he professed his true feelings.

"Hey, you shouldn't say that, you should give her a chance. She's here for a reason, whichever that may be," she told him.

"I know," he said, turning his head away from her. Jennifer took her hand away from her cup to place it on top of his hand that was resting on the table. That gesture made him look back at her.

"Get a room you guys," Nick came into the room with a toothy smile, loving to tease them once in a while. Their hands instantly departed from one another upon that remark. They knew that some of the staff knew of their relationship but it was the supervisors they worried about.

"I better get back or else Eckley will be on my ass again," Jennifer mentioned, taking one last long gulp of her coffee and disposing of it in the sink.

She headed for the door and then turned around suddenly, remembering something. "By the way, Greg, I couldn't find a match on the system about your Jane Doe, sorry. But I have the results from the hay that you brought in so when you're ready, come give me a visit. Hodges has been super busy and asked me to help him out, but don't tell him I told you." She winked at him before she headed back in the direction to her glass workplace.

Nick watched the scene and chuckled a little after he poured his cup of coffee. He waltzed over to where Greg was sitting.

"She is something, isn't she?" Nick asked, then taking a long sip of his beverage. Greg rolled his eyes at him, but then a grin appeared that he couldn't hide.

"Yeah, tough luck Nicky, she's mine," he said, gathering his files in his hands and heading out to follow the lab tech.

* * *

Lynndy was paged by Jennifer saying she had the results from the hay they collected from the scene so she was on her way there. As she came down the hallway, she noticed Greg in an unusually happy mood walking opposite of her and into the lab that she was headed to. Automatically, she knew that he was contacted as well to hear the results.

Greg saw the tall Texan walk into the lab as well and his cheerful mood fell. Jennifer noticed this and gave him an evil stare. His eyes turned away from hers but he could still feel the burn of the feminine eye.

"So what did you find out?" Lynndy started, wanting to know what they could go on since they basically had nothing.

"Oh, right," she stopped her sneering at Greg and walked around the counters to the printer, grabbing the piece of paper that had the results and looked at it, remembering what she had read before; getting tons of evidence can make you forget sometimes.

"Okay quiz time," she said energetically. Greg groaned but Lynndy was amused at the excited woman. "The accelerant used is composed of terpenes, mainly the monoterpenes, alpha-pinene, and beta-pinene." Lynndy scrunched her face slightly as she concentrated and thought back to her days of book worming back in college. This was a little entertaining as she wracked her brain. She knew what it was but she couldn't think exactly what it could be.

"Sounds like nail polish to me," Lynndy guessed, knowing that those components sounded like the familiar over the counter product. Unfortunately, she was off.

"God, it's turpentine, all right? Even I know that," Greg retorted, grabbing the printed results from Jennifer and leaving the lab in a huff. Lynndy knitted her eyebrows together in frustration at his backside as he left.

"Okay, what the hell is his problem?" Lynndy thought aloud to herself forgetting that a certain lab tech was standing next to her.

"He only knew that because he used to work in the labs," Jennifer mentioned, with her hands on her hips. She mostly said that to herself, then continued to answer her question. "He just misses Sara."

She didn't know if the other woman wanted to hear the real reason or not but she said it anyway. Lynndy turned around to face her, slightly blushing at the fact that she had said that too loud.

"So I've heard from everybody," she remarked, slightly annoyed. She didn't want to take it out on this woman but she didn't know how else to react.

"Everyone was really close to her and she just up and left one day with no explanation, it hit everyone pretty hard," she explained. "And I guess in Greg's case, he and Sara were close friends."

Lynndy felt a little bad about him, not realizing how close everyone was to this CSI that left. She was here to help out because of her leave, but they were all attacking her with invisible daggers. She hated the fact that she had to prove herself worthy to arduous individuals.

"This is getting ridiculous," Lynndy admitted. "I have a right mind to report all of this abuse to Grissom."

"Just give him time," Jennifer advised, knowing how he can be when he's irritated like this. "And don't give up, you're doing an amazing job."

"Thanks," Lynndy said, already liking this woman she just met.

"So, do you want me to yell at him or do you want to do the honors?" Jennifer asked with a smile. Luckily, that made the other woman laugh.

"What happened to giving him time?" she questioned the other woman's advice. Jennifer glanced at her watch and nodded.

"That was enough time," she joked, getting a snort out of the Texan.

"I better do it, we need to settle this once and for all," she said, taking her leave of the lab.

* * *

Greg was in the locker room, changing his shoes and tying his shoelaces as he listened to loud music on his iPod. With the earphones lodged in his eardrums and the faint sound of the music you could hear from a distance, he instinctively nodded his head to the rhythm. Lynndy had almost passed by the room in the attempts to find him. She came into the locker room and crossed her arms as she watched him briefly.

"Greg," she called out to him. Whether he was ignoring her on purpose or he truly didn't hear her, she wasn't sure.

"Greg!" she yelled louder at him. He raised his eyes and saw her standing there looking peeved and he was giving her the same look of his own. Lynndy gestured for him to take out his earphones and he reluctantly did so.

"We need to talk," she said sternly.

"About what?" he asked, casually playing it off.

"Don't avoid it," she said. "Look, I know y'all like to hog tie me and leave me to the wolves because I'm a newbie, but that doesn't make it right," her Texas accent shining more through her anger.

"You can save your little southern anecdotes-"

"You need to shape up," she interrupted. "I'm sorry about your fellow coworker, there's nothing I can do about it. But since she is gone, I have to be here to help out whether you like it or not. So I suggest we save ourselves both the trouble and be nice to each other."

Greg looked at her sternly, angry with this woman. She could never replace Sara in his mind. He missed her immensely and seeing this other woman made it all too real for him. He sighed, not knowing how to deal with this.

"You don't know how I feel," he admitted his hurt, putting down his defenses. She lowered hers as well, sympathizing with the man.

"No, I don't," she agreed with him. "But I am not here to intimidate you. I have nothing against y'all or the woman who left so I don't need to be treated as such." Greg sighed as he placed his gaze towards the ground. He still didn't like it, but she was right, he was treating her awfully. Somehow, he felt that if he caused her grief then she would leave. Little did he know that Nick tried the same trick. He could see she wasn't going anywhere so he figured he'd at least bear it out until the conclusion of the case.

"You're right, I'm sorry," he apologized, giving her a genuine smile.

"I appreciate it," she told him, deciding a change of subject was called for. "So you're off for the night then?"

"Yeah," he simply said. "Are you going home too?"

"Actually I was going to stay here for a little bit longer, I wanted to search for more info on the computers. You go on home though, I'll update you if I happen to find anything."

"Okay, well don't stay too long, I don't think they pay for overtime anymore," Greg teased, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and slamming his locker shut.

"I'm not worried," she told him. Greg nodded slightly and then past by her as he went on his way. Lynndy felt somewhat relieved that they had a talk. This was the second time she had to "prove" herself to a coworker and it was getting annoying. But that was in the past now. What she needed to do now was get her butt in gear and look up anything that she can find to see if they can get some kind of lead other than turpentine.

Turpentine… maybe she'll start there.

* * *

**(Nick's "tale" was an excerpt from "Raw Head and Bloody Bones" as retold by S. E. Schlosser)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Please read and review! I would love to hear if you guys are enjoying it. Thanks!**

**Disclaimer: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is © Anthony E Zuiker/CBS. I do not own anything, except for the original character who happens to be my best friend and the character of Jennifer is also mine.**

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* * *

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The haunting blue glare of the computer monitor was present on Lynndy's face as she scanned through some information. The room was dark so the glare came off more on her glasses as she scanned the pages that appeared on the monitor through her slightly long bangs. She rubbed her eyes a little underneath her glasses in frustration.

The only source of information she already knew of was that painters usually use turpentine to clean brushes or to thin out varnishes or other paints. So, what? Are they dealing with a serial artist who liked to set fire to people just for fun?

Nick was passing by the computer labs with a manila folder in his hands. Glancing into the lab out of habit to see which familiar face was in there as he passed, he noticed that the new CSI was in there, concentrating hard on the screen as her eyebrows knitted together in thought. He wasn't sure if he should interrupt her but she looked like she needed some kind of distraction right now.

"Having a staring contest with the computer?" Nick joked, getting her attention. Lynndy shook her head at him.

"Yeah, and it's winning," she remarked, then sighed. "We have no lead to our case, it's frustrating," she admitted, taking off her glasses to look at him, feeling a slight headache coming on.

"Oh yeah, the wooden stake case?" he asked her. "I thought you'd get right to the point on that one." Not a smirk came across her face as she stared at him in all her seriousness.

"That was a really bad joke," Lynndy informed him and rubbed her temples as if he made her headache worse. Nick chuckled and flashed her a toothy grin.

"You're right, I need my coffee to get the brain cells working," he indicated to his head with his finger. "Hey, you want some?"

"Sure, I'll take mine with cream and a little sugar please," she accepted the offer, she was feeling fatigue starting to overwhelm her. He placed his case file on the table next to her and left the lab to the break room that was close by to get their coffees. He came back with both of them and set hers down beside her.

"So why are you still here? Isn't your shift over?" she asked curious before taking a sip of the aromatic beverage, letting the veil of steam float up across her face.

"Yeah, but I gotta get the trace results back from Hodges, I think we might have a break in the case," he said. "It kills me if I can't get a lead before I go for the day. And I see you're the same." He indicated to her with his cup of coffee before taking a sip.

"Definitely, it kills me not knowing, that's why I'm here," she replied to his comment. Nick nodded understanding.

"Well, I'll leave you to your hard, tedious work," Nick remarked with a grin, gathering his file with him as he left the glass encased lab.

Jennifer saw Nick leaving the computer lab, taking a sip of his coffee as he went by her. She had checked all of the labs and didn't even think that Lynndy was still here since Greg had left earlier; but was hopeful because she didn't notice that she left either. With a few documents in hand, she kept to her journey of finding the woman so she could give some information to her. Her eyes gazed around and found her at one of the computers in thought. She tried to contain her excitement that maybe she found a good break in the case. Maybe.

"Hey, I see you're still here," Jennifer said to get her attention.

"So are you," Lynndy said to her amused. "I thought you'd be with Greg right now." Jennifer's eyes grew at that comment and her heart stopped for a brief moment.

"Is it that obvious?" she asked nervously. If this woman figured out about her and Greg being together than maybe the supervisors would. She would have to be less suspicious.

"No, I just figured it out on my own," she admitted to the other woman. "Don't worry, I won't say anything."

"Thanks," she breathed a sigh of relief, then remembered why she needed to see the CSI. "Oh! I thought I'd let you know that I finally found out who your Jane Doe is," she beamed.

"Really? How did you find out?" Lynndy asked, intrigued.

"I have my ways," she plainly answered. "Her name is Emily Thornton and she was 17 years old-" Lynndy looked up at her confused and sternly that stopped the lab tech from continuing.

"Okay really, how did you get this? You said that there were no hits in CODIS and there were no fingerprints to go on," Lynndy mentioned, wanting to know. The other woman groaned, giving up.

"Well, don't tell anyone but I decided to take my time off and look up some missing persons, and hers was recent, she had been missing for a few days," she started to explain. "The parents came in with a hair brush and I compared the hairs that we found in the witch's hat to the hairs on the brush and _boom_, we got a hit. Got a photo from her parents here."

"That was quick," Lynndy was impressed, taking the photo from her hands.

"Yeah I also compared it to the DNA sample that Doc Robbins sent off to me and it was also a match, so it's definitely the victim's. I like double-checking everything."

"Good trait to have," Lynndy commented. She looked at the picture of the young teen who was the victim in this horrible burning. It was a picture of her and what seemed to be friends She had raven hair and white skin. She looked to be into the goth style with her black ensemble and she wore a frown along with the other people in the photo.

"Did you inform the parents that it was their daughter?" Lynndy asked, glancing at the woman next to her.

"Uh no, I got backed up in the lab so I told them that someone would get back to them," she admitted with a apologetic look etched on her face.

"Which would be me," she remarked.

"Sorry, it's just Eckley wants me to help out with the day shift hence why I'm still here, I swear that man is trying to see if I'll crack," she said angrily and then looked at her watch. "Shoot, I better get back. I hope that helps."

"Oh it does, thanks," she thanked the other woman. Jennifer headed out of the door and back in the direction that she came in a slight rush.

Lynndy grabbed her cell phone from the belt of her jeans and dialed her partner's phone number. She knew he was going to be pissed but will forgive her when he finds out that they now have a face to that charred body they found.

* * *

Sporting their uniforms and shades, Greg and Lynndy came out of the Denali and approached the front door of the Thornton family. Telling them that the victim was their daughter is never easy in any case. It was something that they had to get used to though. They needed to get some answers, find out what they could from the parents and all of that other protocol stuff they had to do. This was the only break in the case and they were hoping to get more clues.

Greg raised his fist and knocked lightly on the heavy oak door with a decorative window etched into the center. Through the blurry glass, a figure advanced to the door and opened it to reveal a tall lanky man with short brown hair. Before the forensics duo introduced themselves, the man observed them with a serious look.

"If you're here then that means it was her," the father said. The duo looked at each other, then Lynndy took off her sunglasses to look at the man better, not letting his words falter her professional manners.

"I'm Lynndy and this is my partner Greg, we're from the Las Vegas Crime Lab," she started. "And the answer to your statement is yes, we confirmed that it was your daughter through DNA testing."

A woman with raven hair like her daughter's came to the door to hear what was going on and see who it was at the door. The man looked at her briefly and then gestured with his hand for the two outsiders to come into the house and they followed.

The house was unnaturally clean and pristine. Looking around, there were artifacts of Christianity scattered around the living room. A few framed photos were lined up on the mantle above the stone fireplace. But most of them were of the parents or relatives, not of the daughter. That intrigued Lynndy since she was super observant.

"What's going on, dear?" the woman asked the husband. He just shook his head at her, not being able to say anything. He seemed emotional but no tears came to his eyes. Lynndy wasn't sure if she should break the news to the mother but she could see that the father wasn't going to.

"Ma'am, we confirmed that the burned body we found last night was in fact, your daughter's," Lynndy informed her, hating this part of her job.

The woman tried to hold back the tears that were forming in her eyes as she turned away from the two. Greg came forward to the father, hoping that they could get some kind of questioning started.

"Sir, may we ask you a few questions regarding your daughter in order to help our investigation?" he asked the other man. His hand rubbed against his chin for a moment and then nodded.

"Yeah, anything," he said, keeping himself in check from the devastating news.

"Do you know if your daughter had any friends? Any enemies?" Lynndy asked, keeping her little notebook close at hand.

"Yeah, she had some bizarre friends," the father informed them. The mother wiped her eyes and composed herself, trying not to embarrass herself in front of the professionals. She soon joined her husband's side to help out in the questioning.

"What do you mean by 'bizarre'?" Lynndy asked, trying to get them to be specific.

"Our daughter was into goth, she always wore black, white makeup, you name it. Her friends were the same. She would always sneak out late at night to have parties with her friends or something," the mother explained, carefully wiping her nose with a tissue.

"Do you know if she had any enemies, or mention anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?" Greg asked, taking part in the questioning.

"Because of the life she wanted to lead, she probably had a lot of enemies. She was never nice to people who weren't like her," the father replied.

"What do you mean 'who weren't like her'?" Greg asked.

"She was into witch crap," the father stated angrily. Obviously it hit a nerve with him, they could already tell that the father didn't get along with his daughter.

"Witchcraft," the mother corrected.

"Same thing," the father said annoyed. "It was all bullshit if you asked me. She would still be alive if she didn't hang out with those friends of her, I bet you they did it!"

"Do you know where her friends live?" Lynndy asked, making sure to write the info in her little notebook.

"One lives down the road not far from here, I think he calls himself Ahti or some weird name. Her friends like to call themselves by their witch names," he explained, gesturing quotation marks for 'witch names.' "So I'm not sure what his name really is."

"How long was your daughter missing?" Lynndy asked, remembering what Jennifer had told her.

"For about 4 days I think," the mother said. "She usually likes to stay for a few days at her friend's house, so we didn't think much of it. But I decided to check up on her and all of her friends swore that they hadn't seen her and that's when I reported her missing two days ago."

"Did her friends mention where they saw her last?" she asked.

"They all said that they had gone to Burger King to get something to eat after school and she left to go home, but we never saw her," the mother replied.

"Would you mind if we took a look around?" Lynndy asked, starting her way down the hallway slowly before getting an answer.

"Sure, go ahead," the mother said.

"Thanks," she said, heading down to the bedrooms, entering what looked to be the victim's.

As she entered, she surveyed the bedroom. Posters of heavy metal bands were plastered on the walls along with some paintings and some interesting statues of witches and goth-like figures. The black bed sheets were tossed roughly towards the carpeted floor. She snapped the latex gloves on her hands as she scanned the room, her hawk-like eyes taking in the environment of a troubled teenager. Her mind went to the thoughts of how hard it must have been to have one way of family religion and the daughter to contradict that religion. Such as life these days, most offspring tend to not follow in the ways of their parents.

Another thing that intrigued her was that she saw a few canvas boards with different colored paints and brushes. The girl must've been an artist and the paintings that she saw on the walls must've been hers. She looked at them closely to see that most of them depicted death, despair, fear, and other depressing issues. Lynndy was a fan of art and could tell by looking at drawings how much this girl expressed her depression and possible mental disorders through her craft. When Lynndy came closer to the table full of art supplies, something caught her attention. There was a rectangular can of turpentine that was dented in the middle slightly. She reached out and picked it up, noticing that it was almost empty. She grabbed a plastic evidence bag from her silver kit and proceeded to bag the can. Finally, it seemed like they were finding crucial evidence to this case and it gave her a good feeling, a type of feeling that only CSI's get, kind of like a personal victory.

Greg searched the parents' room that was catawampus to the victim's room for anything in particular. His brown eyes inspected the clean and tidy room as he snapped on his latex gloves just in case he found anything. He checked the drawers and found a bible. It reminded him of searching a hotel room. As he walked around the room, he came across the closet with shuttered doors. The doors swayed opened to reveal a variety of clothing. His professional eyes came across a black clerical outfit that ministers usually wore. He assumed the father was a minister. The black fibers were torn on the sleeve which were not mended yet.

After checking the tear, he adverted his eyes to some shoes that were right underneath the hanging clothing. He took a look into one of the men's shoes and noticed that it was a size 11. To him, that was very curious because the shoeprint found at the scene was the same size. Heading towards his kit, he pulled out the scan of the shoeprint they found at the crime scene and did a side by side comparison. Unfortunately, none of them matched. Disappointed, he replaced the shoes back where they were. With one last look around, he took his kit and left the room. His partner was still in the victim's room so he headed off to meet with the parents again. They were still in the living room where the two had left them. Greg decided to go ahead and ask the parent's for their DNA so they could possibly rule them out as suspects.

"I'd like to ask the both of you for a voluntary DNA sample, it's routine to all cases," Greg told them. They nodded, not even once protesting. Usually that meant they had nothing to hide, but not all the time. He swabbed the both of them fairly quickly. He knew to ask for the voluntary sample before asking about the father's shoes. When he eyed them earlier, he noticed caked mud on the tips of them.

"Sir, may I see your shoes please?" he asked, as he reached in his kit for the imprint sample he had.

"Why?" he asked, a common one word question that Greg's heard many times before. Greg shrugged at the man and inwardly smirked at what his response was going to be.

"Why not?" he asked, imitating his fellow supervisor. The father cocked an eyebrow at him and proceeded to sit down and slip off his shoes. He handed them to the CSI and Greg took the copy of the shoeprint and did a side by side comparison of the markings on the sole. He noticed the similarity of the patterns. These were the shoes.

"Sir, I'll be needing to take these for examination," he informed them. Of course, he got a round of protests from the parents.

"I need those for church service tonight!" he told him.

"I'll get them back to you as soon as possible," he told him, shrugging off the threateningly look that the man was giving him.

"Why are you so interested in his shoes? What is that you were looking at?" the mother asked, wanting some answers as to why he was taking her husband's shoes.

"We found a set of shoeprints at the crime scene and they match to your husband's shoes," he explained. "That is why I need to take them back to the lab."

"Fine," the husband snapped. "Just get them back to me soon. Whatever it takes to get the both of you out of here."

Lynndy happened to come join them at that moment and heard the commotion. She took it as their cue to leave. They were done anyway so they silently headed out from where they came.

"That guy is bigger than you, I don't think you should be picking fights with him," Lynndy remarked.

"Yeah, don't start putting bets on him yet," he said.

"So what was all the hubbub about anyway?" she asked curious.

"The father wears a size 11 shoe, which is the same size as the shoeprint we found at the crime scene," he started. "I compared his shoes to the shoeprint and there was no match. But when I compared it to the shoes he was wearing, they matched. They also have traces of dried mud on them."

"And guess what I found? Turpentine in the victim's bedroom and it's almost empty," Lynndy told him. His ears perked up at that and he glanced at her.

"Today's our lucky day," Greg said happily. The duo secured their samples in the vehicle and headed off to the next house.

* * *

Approaching the house, it was covered with African Ivy and unkempt almost as if the house was never lived in. If there wasn't a car parked in the driveway, they would have assumed it was abandoned.

"This just keeps getting better," Greg mentioned, finding this all too weird yet again. Lynndy rolled her eyes at him but didn't say a word as they approached the front door of the said house. Lynndy balled up her hand into a fist and knocked on the wooden door, waiting for a response. The door opened a few seconds later, revealing an Indian teen giving them a confused look.

"Are you Ahti?" Greg asked, feeling weird calling this teen by that name.

"Yes, who may I ask are you?" he asked, not sure what was going on.

"We were informed that you were friends with an Emily Thornton?" Lynndy asked, holding up the picture that Jennifer had given her back at the lab. He gave them a look as if he didn't know where this was going.

"She was murdered last night... burned alive, we need to ask you a few questions," Greg said, getting right to the point.

"Zoraida?" Ahti mentioned in shock, he couldn't believe they informed him that she was killed. "Are you sure it was her? I mean if she was burned-"

"We did a DNA test and it matched to her," Lynndy told him. "So tell us, you were friends with Emily?"

"Zoraida, yes," he corrected. "We both practiced the art of witchcraft. About every other night, she would come here along with a girlfriend of hers and we would perform simple spells to master. She hated being at her parents' house because they never wanted to admit the fact that she was a genuine witch."

"Were you two involved in any way?" Greg asked.

"If you mean romantically, the answer is no," he remarked bitterly. "She was my best friend."

"So who is this 'girlfriend' that you spoke of? What's her name?" Lynndy asked.

"Riona," he said.

"Her _real_ name," Lynndy stressed. He rolled his eyes at her.

"Karin Hammond," he replied to her.

"Where does she live?" Lynndy asked. He gave her the exact address that was located near Desert Pines High School on Harris Avenue, where he mentioned they all went to school.

"She's on vacation with her parents somewhere so I don't think you're going to find her at her house anytime soon," Ahti decided to inform them. They didn't think much of it, they knew how to find anybody.

"We're going to need your real name and a voluntary DNA sample from you to rule you out as a suspect," Greg said.

"My name is Paresh Kapur, can you do your thing another time? I'm really busy," he tried to get out of it.

"This'll only take a second," he said. The teen sighed impatiently and reluctantly nodded. He crossed his arms as Greg swabbed the inside of his cheeks. After he was done, Paresh slammed the door in their faces.

"That went well," Greg said sarcastically.

"If only we can harness that venom to make a cure for world peace," Lynndy remarked. Greg eyed her and shook his head. They gathered in the car and went back to the lab to sort things out.

* * *

Gathered around the evidence table, Lynndy and Greg were contemplating on what they had and figure out the scenario of what really happened. Lynndy placed her hands on the edge of the table as if to look closer at their pictures and evidence samples.

"The turpentine can we found didn't have any prints on it." Greg started out.

"The suspect must've worn gloves when using the turpentine can to douse the hay with," Lynndy mentioned. "Did you collect a match?"

"Yeah, but no prints were found on it, no matchbook either," Greg replied.

"Okay, the suspect must've kept the matchbook, we found turpentine in the hay samples. The turpentine wasn't found at the scene but we found it at the parent's house. There were no tire marks but we did find a shoeprint that we believe belongs to the suspect's, which might be the father."

"The shoeprints are a match," he said. "Timberland Boat Shoe, size 11, great comfort when burning your own daughter." Lynndy shook her head, Greg was starting to sound like Nick with his one-sided theory but she just ignored it.

"We know that she was a self-proclaimed witch and her friends, Karin Hammond and Paresh Kapur, were witches also," Lynndy stated.

"You mean Paresh was a 'wizard' or 'warlock'," Greg corrected.

"Not necessarily, a wizard is not commonly used to describe a practitioner of witchcraft and a warlock actually means 'oath breaker' and it's considered an insult to called a male witch that."

Greg eyed her suspiciously.

"Don't ask me how I know that," Lynndy told him, shaking her head.

"Anyway," Greg started, not wanting to ask any further. "I think the father did it. He obviously was disgusted by his daughter not being a mold of the perfect Christian daughter. The girl practiced witchcraft, the witch's hat we found, and the burning of the victim on a stake corresponds back to the Salem Witch trials back in the 17th century. He sacrificed her."

"I still think we're missing something," Lynndy reflected. "It doesn't seem right."

The strawberry blonde came down the hallway intent on finding who she needed. As she passed by the different glass labs, she came across the person she needed to see, more like persons. Luckily, both of them were together trying to piece the little evidence that they had pertaining to their case.

"Hey, I'm glad I found you guys," Catherine started, breathing a sigh of relief. The two of them looked at her, seeing that she was a little flushed from trying to locate them.

"What's up?" Greg asked, happy to see the supervisor since she seemed MIA all day.

"There was another body burning not far from here, it was on a wooden stake, just like your case," she explained as she gave them the information.

Lynndy and Greg looked at each other and without saying a word, headed out to the location to see if this had anything to do with the first case they had.


	5. Chapter 5

The sunshine was bright and the wind was warm in the desert surrounded by cactuses and dead trees along with dry patches of manmade dirt roads. The sand kicked up a few times, making the scenery blurred. This area of the desert was usually uninhabited except now the sights of the firefighter trucks, police cars, and the coroner's van were present. The black Denali pulled up also and Lynndy and Greg came out of the vehicle with their kits and latex covering their hands. The heat was already getting to them as their foreheads glistened right above their shades. Even the shades didn't help shield their eyes much, as you could see their faces squint at the piercing sunlight.

They closed in to where Detective Curtis was standing with her hands on her hips, her long blonde hair blowing with the gusts of winds. She was clad in jeans and a blouse with her badge clipped to her belt and shades covering her eyes as well.

"I heard that there was a new CSI in town, I'm Sofia," she mentioned with a soft smile. "Nice to finally meet you." Lynndy nodded in agreement. Sofia scanned the area again as if to make sure everything was in order then proceeded to walk towards the remains of the bonfire as the two CSI's followed close behind.

As Catherine had told them, it was another body burned on a wooden stake above a hay-filled bonfire. The firefighters put the fire out and left the rest of the dirty work to the forensics team. The air was filled with small streams of white smoke coming from the remaining flammable parts and the dirt was already absorbing the water used to douse the fire. The body was of a woman, that much they could tell. The fire was put out before she was completely burned away.

"The firefighters were able to put this out before it became a nightmare," she mentioned to them. "It would have been one hell of a fire with all the dried brush around here."

"And the winds wouldn't have helped either," Lynndy mentioned as the wind thrashed through her long brunette hair as if on cue, the wind deafening her ears. "When was this called in?"

"About an hour ago, anonymous caller said they noticed the smoke and fire," Sofia answered.

"Seems like they called it in just when it started," she mentioned, noticing that there wasn't that much damage except to the body on the stake and the hay used to start it.

"Yeah, hence why they remained anonymous I might imagine," she said to them. "I'll keep a watch for the coroner," Sofia mentioned, knowing to leave the work to the CSI's. For some reason, this was a busy week for the coroners so they had been slightly late to some of the cases. This didn't bother the duo though for it gave them a chance to look over the body completely before it was taken away.

"There's no doubt about it, the suspect had something against witches," Lynndy remarked as she scanned the white gold and onyx ring that the woman was wearing on what was left of her finger. It had a Wicca symbol on it; a star inside of a circle. She recognized it from looking up information on witchcraft and Wicca.

"I think that's a definite," Greg commented, finding pieces of the fabric that came from the victim on the ground almost to ashes. He placed the yellow markers beside any loose pieces he could find and took a picture along with it. Lynndy had her own camera and she was taking pictures of the body from different angles and zoom percentages. Combination of red, black, and what was left of ivory colored skin covered the body.

"You know, I should have studied some of the witchcraft spells so I could bring her back to life, ask her who did this," Lynndy joked lightly.

"Don't you need candles and parts of animals for that?" Greg said sarcastically.

"Yeah," she simply said, still scanning the body for anything peculiar.

"And don't forget the blood from each of us," he reminded.

"I already gave at the office," Lynndy smirked. Greg chuckled lightly at that and concentrated on what they could find.

"Hey Greg, I found something on the body," she pointed out as Greg closed in to where she was. His professional eyes caught sight of a wound in the upper left chest of the victim. It was hard to see because the surrounding tissues were charred.

"Do you think the suspect killed her with a knife and then burned her?" he asked, trying to see what kind of theory was in her head.

"It's too thick to be a knife," she commented, then pointed to it with her finger. "See how blunt it is?"

"A cross, then?" he mumbled as he was in thought. He wanted to search around to see if the weapon used was still around the scene. Lynndy took notice of this and let him be as she took more pictures of the wound up close. He searched the brush around the area and found what looked like a wooden stake that had the familiar maroon colored blood on it. Not what he thought it was initially but it was still just as bizarre. He swabbed it and put a few drops of phenol on the tip of the swab, testing positive for blood.

"Found it," Greg said, holding up the wooden stake to show her as if she wouldn't believe him if he didn't. "What is she, a vampire too?"

"There must have been some reason for the suspect to have done that to her," she mentioned. "Everything seems to fall around religious perspectives."

Greg shook his head slightly and grabbed in the back pocket of his jeans to pull out an evidence bag. He shook it open and slipped it in there before zipping it. When doing this, he also took notice of the same footprint that he had seen back at the last crime scene. But it was very faint since the ground away from the initial scene was bone dry dirt. Though, he did catch a faint trail of a tire tread. The last crime scene didn't have any tire tracks, or they must have been washed away from the firefighters putting out the blaze. He collected that and hopeful that they could find out what the car was and possibly who it belonged to.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late," a familiar voice came towards them. It was David in his coroner's outfit and he was squinting in the dusty wind.

"No worries," Greg told him. David went over to the body to check it out and see if there was anything relevant that he could tell them.

"This is the second burned body for you guys, huh?" David asked, his eyes squinting in the piercing sunlight as he looked in their direction. They nodded and his eyes went back to the charred remains. He inspected it to see if he could find anything unusual or useful, but just finding melted fibers of clothing glued to the body. "They always seemed to be stripped of anything except their clothing."

"Do you think you could give us a time of death from the liver temperature?" Lynndy joked to him. David just chuckled at that, knowing these burn cases were always hard to determine much unless something significant was left on the body. Unfortunately, he didn't see any trace evidence. He was making his notes and before he called over his team to help him cut the body down from the steel wiring, he noticed something odd.

"I think you guys should take a look at this," he told them in hopes to perk their interests.

"We know about the wound in the chest," Greg said, thinking that was what David was going to inform them about.

"No, I found something in the victim's mouth that might be of some interest to you," he stated. The duo closed in to where he was and he pointed out what he saw that they didn't. It was a piece of black fabric in between the victim's front teeth. Lynndy took out a pair of tweezers and pulled out the fabric in one small tug. It hadn't been touched by the fire and that was good for them; for her eyes took in what looked to be a blood stain on the black fabric, as it reflected in the sunlight. She reached down in her kit and took out a swab, she swabbed the fabric and tested it for blood; a pink color staring right back at her.

"There's blood on this," she said, her eyes lighting up. This might be the break they had been looking for.

"The victim must have tried to escape and bit her attacker in her attempts to run away," Greg said, recreating the scenario in his mind. Then he thought of something that just clicked in his head and showed. Lynndy noticed the shock of realization come across his face and became curious. Greg saw her expression and explained.

"When we were at the Thornton residence, I found a tear in the sleeve of the father's minister clothing," he told Lynndy. Her eyes widened a little more but returned to normal as she thought of something.

"But we visited the home before this happened, it doesn't make sense," she elaborated.

"It could have been done before he burned her, to try to get away before she was put on the stake to burn," he tried to piece together. "Regardless, it was torn, it seems pretty suspicious."

Lynndy nodded to that at the moment. There was a lot of evidence against Mr. Thornton, but for now, they needed to see if it really did belong to him and to do some interrogating to slap him with this evidence leading right up to his door.

* * *

Lynndy and Greg were clad in blue gowns as they made their way to the morgue. They knew they weren't going to get much from the diagnosis since most of the body was burned away, but the wound in the chest was something new from the previous burning with Emily Thornton. They met up with Doc Robbins as he was finishing up with the victim.

"What can you tell us about the wound that was found on her chest?" Lynndy asked, starting with the routine "cause of death" conversation.

"The wound in the chest was antemortem," Doc Robbins began. "It hit a pulmonary artery near the heart causing rapid blood loss, which is the COD."

"We found a wooden object at the scene-" Lynndy started to say but was interrupted.

"Stake," Greg corrected. Lynndy gave him a deathly stare and then continued.

"Do you think that could have done it?" she asked, knowing the answer but needing to receive a second opinion.

"Surprisingly, the wooden object went cleanly in and out without leaving any trace of splinters, but that would work," he agreed.

"So the burning wasn't cause?" Greg asked, wanting to double check.

"There is some smoke inhalation present in the lungs but not enough to kill her, she lost a substantial amount of blood before she was burned. I sent a sample off to DNA and I will send dental impressions to see if we can ID the victim."

"Thanks," Greg said as the two of them made their way out of the morgue.

* * *

Lynndy was eyeing the monitor as she typed some information quickly into the keyboard in front of her. She was scanning the different dentists around the area to see if any of them had a match to the dental impressions of the victim to see if they could identify the woman.

After a good amount of time searching, her eyes caught sight of an x-ray that claimed of a similar pattern. She carefully matched the shapes that contoured the impression and smirked to himself as she physically matched it. The name of the girl was Dawn Garrison and from the birth date she saw that she was only 19 when she was killed. She frowned at that, these girls were teenagers who didn't seem to be sexually assaulted like most cases involving females, but were burned on a wooden stake possibly because they were self-proclaimed witches. With this new information, she grabbed some documents that were printed and headed out of the computer lab.

* * *

Greg focused solely on the computer in front of him as he typed in some information. He made a scan of the tire impression that he had collected from the recent case. He scanned the image into the system to see if any particular model came up.

The problem with cars was that a good amount of them had the same tire make. About five different models, makes, and years appeared on the screen when the search was finished. He printed out the results, a little disappointed that he would have to crack down on it. He needed to narrow the search down which he was not looking forward to. Plopping himself in the nearby chair, he proceeded to do just that.

* * *

Lynndy made her way to the break room, hoping to grab a Diet Coke and relax for a few before getting back to the two burn cases that she and Greg had. As she wandered in, she noticed a familiar woman sitting at the oval table. Her eyes took her in once more, noticing that she was looking very tired and her hair was unkempt as she stared at the table as if she was having a staring contest with it.

"You look terrible," Lynndy mentioned to the fellow DNA tech as she snatched a can of her favorite soda from the refrigerator.

"I try," she said half-jokingly as her face didn't flinch. Lynndy sat down across the table from the other woman, staring at her with a worried look on her face when she noticed that Jennifer wasn't looking up at her to even greet her. Upon closer look, she saw that her eyes were a little puffy as if she had been crying recently but she couldn't tell for sure.

"Are you okay?" she finally asked, trying to pry out some information from the other woman.

"Yeah I'm fine, I'm just really tired," she replied nonchalantly, rubbing her eyes as if to indicate her fatigue. "I'm still not used to these long hours."

"Tell me about it," she commented. Jennifer stood up and headed over to the counter. She pulled out a box of her own herbal tea and grabbed one of the bags to put in her mug. She dispensed hot water from the coffeemaker over the tea bag and let it sit, watching the color seeping from the teabag dance in the water. Turning around, she eyed the CSI.

"Would you like some?" she offered.

"No thanks, I got my soda," she answered holding up her soda can.

"Oh sorry, I didn't see," she apologized, feeling slightly embarrassed that she offered a drink when she already had one.

"I think you should get on home," she advised, her accent laced in the words as well as her concern.

"No, I'm fine, really," she tried to convince her. Lynndy didn't buy it; she knew something was wrong. Normally she wanted to get to the bottom of things but instead decided to just leave it alone. If she kept prying at her, she might piss her off so it was better not to. She told herself that maybe she'll open up later.

Jennifer gave a quick goodbye and left the break room to head back to the labs. As she passed by, Greg was going the opposite direction and said a friendly greeting to her as she gave him a rushed one. He cocked an eyebrow at her but just let it be, he needed to talk to Lynndy about the results of the tire tread he found.

Lynndy wanted to ask him what was wrong with her and it was on the tip of her tongue just wanting to creep out, but she reluctantly held back. This was no time for personal matters, especially when his hands were full of documents that looked as though he found something useful.

"I found out what kind of vehicle was at the crime scene for Dawn Garrison," Greg began, showing her his findings. "It belongs to a 2003 Ford F-150 truck."

"Did you find out what color?" Lynndy joked with a slight smile.

"Gee, somehow that didn't come up," he said smartly before continuing. "Now the car that Mr. Thornton owns is a Toyota 4-Runner. I believe that there might be a partner involved."

"We have no proof of another person let alone proof of the initial suspect," she said. "But this is something we can go on."

* * *

Lynndy and Greg headed to the Trace lab side by side as they both wanted to find out what kind of information they could get from the fabric found in the victim's mouth. When they entered, they met up with Hodges who was just finishing up on a sample for another case. He stood there leaning against the counter as he glanced at the new CSI since he hadn't had the pleasure of meeting her earlier.

"Ah, it's nice to finally meet the new CSI," Hodges said to Lynndy in a sickeningly sweet way. Lynndy could already tell by looking at this man that he was a piece of work.

"Thanks," she simply said as she took an overall look at the man. His demonic eyebrows and smirking were creeping her out somewhat.

"I bet you are more professionally trained back in Houston or else Grissom wouldn't have chosen you," Hodges remarked, with a quick side glance to Greg. He was trying to seem more likable to her than he really was sometimes; trying to weasel into her good graces.

"No one like a kiss ass, Hodges," Greg said, rolling his eyes at him. Lynndy silently agreed but it didn't show on her face.

"Takes one to know one," he mumbled. Greg gave him an evil eye. Lynndy could tell that there was tension between the two and they couldn't stand one another. Before they could act more like children, she decided to break it up.

"What are the results?" she asked, getting straight to the point. Hodges gave her an irritated look in return but then began to tell them the results.

"I processed the sample you gave me," Hodges started, crossing his arms across his chest. "It's a very unusual material called 'Polyester Dupreme.'"

"Dupreme? What kind of material is that?" Greg asked.

"Took me a while to figure that one out-" he said before he was slightly interrupted.

"No kidding," Greg remarked under his breath. Hodges heard him but ignored it, raising his voice slightly as he continued.

"But I researched it and I found out that only certain types of people are supposed to wear that material."

"Which is?" Lynndy tried to pry it out of him, getting slightly annoyed that he wasn't telling them straight out like she had hoped. Hodges decided to be playful and bowed his head down.

"'Oh Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,'" he started to repeat the famous prayer. She cocked an eyebrow at his charade.

"Ministers?" Lynndy asked. Hodges nodded.

"Ministers, priests, you name it; Religious figures. It's from a Cassock-Alb, a type of robe that they wear," he explained.

"You could have just told us instead of reciting a prayer that you don't believe in," Lynndy stated, slightly annoyed.

"Hey, I never said that," Hodges pointed his finger at Lynndy in his defense.

"Whatever, next time tell us," she said to him, more rudely than she intended to but she didn't like this man at all, and saying that made her feel better. She made her leave out of the lab.

"You need to tell your pussycat to lay off the catnip," Hodges whispered to Greg. Greg rolled his eyes and didn't utter another word to him as he made his leave as well.

"This is definitely adding up to Mr. Thornton, the fabric belonging to a minister and the shoe imprints were a match," Greg stated to his partner when he caught up with her.

"Yeah, but we still need the DNA results from the blood that was swabbed from the fabric, see if it belongs to our suspect," Lynndy reminded. They headed in the direction of the DNA lab together.

"Hey Jen," Greg greeted her. Jennifer gave him a soft smile as she continued with her work. From looking at her, she was stressed out and it really showed. Lynndy was a little apprehensive as she looked upon her and was about to say something but Jennifer spoke before she could.

"I haven't been able to get to your DNA samples yet. Can you guys come back later? I've been really swamped with work today," Jennifer admitted, still doing her procedures of the samples as she spoke. "I'll page you when I get the results."

Greg and Lynndy looked at each other in confusion but felt that they needed to let her be as she continued with her work.

"Okay," Lynndy nodded and the both of them took their leave. Instead, heading off for Brass's office to see if they could bring in Mr. Thornton in for questioning.

* * *

At the familiar plain table in the middle of a closed in room, the CSI's sat at the table together and across from it was the man that the evidence was leading up to. They needed to ask him questions in order to see if his story checked out and what he had to say about the evidence that was against him.

"Why am I even here?" Mr. Thornton asked, already annoyed. He crossed his arms slightly as he sat at the familiar silver table in the closed room, staring down the detective and the CSI's in the room.

"We need to ask you a few questions," Lynndy started out. "Where were you on Halloween night?"

"I was at church as usual doing what I do," he plainly answered.

"Burning people, like your own daughter?" Brass finished his sentence for him.

"No! I wasn't there! I was at mass, ask anyone, they can vouch for me," he replied to that.

"We'll do that," Brass told him. Greg decided to continue with this and start showing off the evidence against this man. He placed the document showing a shoe imprint, turning it around so that it faced the man.

"We found the imprints of your shoes at the crime scene, you mind telling us why?" Greg asked.

"I have no idea, those shoes are a standard type for ministers. I know of several other fellow ministers who wear the exact same shoe," he answered.

"And the same size?" Brass asked smartly.

"I don't know, probably," he replied.

"What was the relationship between you and your daughter?" Lynndy asked, trying to pry more information out of him.

"My daughter was disturbed, she was the typical teenager that went against her parent's wishes. I admit, we never got along. Especially when she found this whole witch thing to piss me off even more. She knew that is against everything I stand for, but typical Emily went ahead and did it anyway."

"So you must rid of evil beings, even if it was your own daughter?" Brass questioned coarsely.

"I didn't kill her! I wasn't ever near that place. She was missing for days, we had no idea where she was," he replied.

"How come we found an empty can of turpentine at your home?" Greg asked, changing the subject slightly.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, confused.

"It was the same accelerant that was used at the crime scene," he explained.

"All I know is that my daughter used that to clean her brushes, she was an artist, I have never even touched the stuff, she bought it on her own," he answered.

"We also found a tear in your clerical clothing when we visited your home, would you like to explain that?" Lynndy asked him, recalling what Greg told her about it.

"I accidentally caught it on the gated fence. Why are you asking?" he asked, even more confused.

"We found a piece of the same fibers that belong to clerical clothing at another crime scene that was similar to your daughter's," Lynndy explained.

"Oh, so because you don't have a lead in my daughter's case, you go off and blame me for it along with another case? That is pathetic," he roared, standing up and pointing his finger accusingly at them. "You know what? I'm done with you and all of your false accusations. If you want anything else from me, I want you to speak to my lawyer and have actual proof to back it up."

"That's fine, Mr. Thornton, but we do need your clerical clothing before you leave," Lynndy said calmly, not even remotely fazed by his threats.

"Oh no," he said, emitting an uneasy laugh as he shook his head. "I learned my lesson on that one, I will not let you take my clerical clothes."

"We don't need your permission this time, we have a warrant for those clothes," Lynndy said, holding up the legal document for him to see.

* * *

"You're not going to believe this," Greg said, examining the tear to the fabric they found at the scene. The fabric underneath the microscope along with the sleeve of the clerical shirt from Mr. Thornton. "It's not a match."

"You have got to be kidding me, tell me you're joking," she demanded. All he did was step aside so that she could take a look at the microscope. She moved to it and stuck her eyes on the top of the microscope, taking a good hard look into it to see if he was mistaken. The jagged edges of the fabric and the tear did not match and it was a different shade of black.

"Damn it," she said aloud, slightly frustrated as she stared at the table.

"Hey guys, I have something for you," Jennifer made her presence known as she came into view. She held a piece of paper that had the results they were waiting for.

"Please tell me some good news," Lynndy pleaded.

"The DNA on the wooden stake matches the victim's," she began. "But the DNA that you swabbed from the fabric from the victim's teeth does not belong to the victim, it belongs to a man named Robert Dillinger, a local priest."

* * *

The police surrounded the vicinity of the home that belonged to the alleged Robert Dillinger. The off-white house looked as though it was neglected. The burgundy color of a Ford F-150 staring at them in the driveway as they closed in to the front door. As the police approached the dirt ridden door, they knocked and yelled their authority to persuade the owner to open up. When nothing happened, they bust down the door and filed in one at a time with their weapons drawn as their safety blanket.

A few of the officers came into the living room of the house and noticed a man dressed in a black priest's clothing on his knees in a prayer stance in front of a manmade cross. He mumbled some words to himself in prayer and the sound of the police did not deter him. They bellowed at him to stand up but he acted as though he did not hear them. Some of them grabbed the man by his arms and pulled him up to a standing position and proceeded to wrap his arms behind his back. A pair of handcuffs were clasped on his wrists and they dragged him to the vehicles outside.

When the house was searched and cleared by the other officers, Lynndy and Greg entered the home to search. Brass was close to them to make sure of things. As they searched, Greg opened a closet door and was greeted by a teenage girl on her knees, bound and gagged. She looked very thin and pale, not counting the white makeup that was on her face. Her face was etched with fear and dried mascara tears on her cheeks. Fresh new tears streamed down as she knew she was finally saved by the police.

* * *

"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Brass asked the man that they had taken away into custody. The four walls encasing the both of them as Brass stared at the man intently. The suspect was clothed in an orange jumper with his hands behind him as he sat lazily in a chair. An annoyed look was on his face, but he was calm as the detective paced in front of the table that separated the two of them.

"Indeed I do," he plainly replied. "I was able to fool you and your science for quite some time." Brass ignored this.

"So why these girls? What did they ever do to you?" he asked curiously, wanting him to confess everything.

"They are witches, the form of pure evil," he remarked, not remotely afraid of his actions. He was thrilled that he had rid the world of two spell casters on his spree. True, he wished he was able to kill more but he had succeeded nonetheless.

"So amuse me, why kill these so-called witches?" Brass asked, gesturing quotation marks for the word "witches."

"They are real witches, performing evil spells," he began to explain in an utmost serious tone. "Makes me ill to think that no one believes why I did this. I knew I was the only one who could. It was so easy, too. I would keep them for a few days to starve them so they don't fight as much. It also gave me time to build the stake that they would be burned on. So I would keep the evil being in my closet, which had a small window in it for air, can't have them dying on me before the ceremonial burning; I didn't want them fouling the rest of my home with their tainted presence. I would drive to the nearest road and park on the side. I did what I needed to do. I would set up the stake with hay around it, tie her to it, and do a ceremonial ritual before lighting her on fire. It was entertaining to watch her scream in pain.

"On my way back, I would take a palm tree branch and swipe it back and forth, to cover my tracks. I knew the footprints around the bonfire would be washed away by the water when the predictable firefighters would come to tame the flame. By that time, all evidence would be burned and I had made my getaway. I would drive away and locate the next witch in the surrounding area. I can't have that kind of filth in my residence."

He stopped his storytelling to look around the room, knowing that people were watching him from the two way mirror as he fidgeted with the metal contraption on his wrists behind him. His eyes grew weary of scanning the seemingly empty room and back to the detective in front of him who had the patience to wait for him to speak again.

"Tell me, how did you find out that it was me?" Robert asked in a creepy tone.

"We found a piece of fabric embedded in the teeth of Dawn Garrison with your DNA on it," Brass admitted the truth of this man's downfall.

"I see," he replied to that and chuckled to himself. "I thought that bitch spit it out, she must have faked it. When I had tied her to the stake, she somehow grabbed my arm in her teeth and bit me. She spit afterwards in disgust so I thought she got rid of it. If I had known it was still in her mouth, I would have made sure it was disposed of. No matter how perfect the burnings were, how perfect I was making the world, I made one flawed mistake that will cost me my freedom and eventually, my life. But remember this: if I don't rid of the evil population in this world, they will take over and you will come crawling back to me. You just wait! Putting me away is a big mistake."

"Well, now you're part of the 25 years to life population," he said, standing up. Having heard enough from this psycho-babbling priest, he nodded to his fellow officer for him to take him away.

On the other side of the glass, Lynndy, Greg, and Nick were watching the scene unfold in front of them. Lynndy felt a little shudder come beneath her. In all the years she worked as a CSI, she still couldn't help but feel a little bit scared at how many creeps are in this world. They all silently made their leave when the whole session was over. Greg headed off in one direction as Lynndy and Nick went in their own down the hallways.

"I always think it's a little odd that someone would confess to their crimes unless they think they should be rewarded instead of punished," Lynndy remarked.

"Yeah, I think he was a little too proud of what he did to those poor girls," Nick commented.

"I'm just glad we were able to catch the guy and save that poor girl from a deathly fate," Lynndy said relieved.

"So, guess that means you have some time off," he said hinting at something. Lynndy cocked an eyebrow at him.

"No, I still have to do normal stuff, you know do laundry, shower, get some well needed sleep, count the sheep that leap over my bed," she said sarcastically, counting it off on her fingers. Nick chuckled at her actions.

"Okay, okay," he said, making her stop. "How about skipping all that for once and going with me to go water skiing, you know that thing where you get on some water skis and ride the waves while being pulled by a boat?"

"Never heard of it," she stated, keeping a straight face.

"Well, not many people do it with it being dangerous and all," he continued with his joshing in a serious tone. "Only a fraction of people survive it."

"You mean when you're driving the boat? That makes sense," she said jokingly. Nick laughed at that, really liking the woman's humor and sarcasm.

"So how about it, would you like to?" he asked again, hopeful. Lynndy thought about it. She was a little unsure but then decided it wouldn't hurt her if she spent some time with this guy. They were getting along pretty well now.

"Sure, sounds good," she replied with a soft smile as they walked out of the labs together.

* * *

**Sorry if this chapter was rushed or lacked but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. I'm hoping the next chapter will be better than this one. Please give reviews! I'm such a review-whore!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for the delay in getting this posted. I've had family emergencies and such. Hopefully it won't take me as long for the next chapter. I hope everyone enjoys it! Please read and review!**

The city of Las Vegas was a diverse place during the day since much of the excitement happened during all hours of the night. The signs were nonexistent without the radiance, and the glamour went unnoticed until the drunks were about town and losing their money to gambling. It was as if the town was a boring place until the darkness overcame the city.

The wind rushed through Lynndy's long dark hair as she waited outside of her hotel. Her figure was covered with some comfortable shorts and a loose shirt that was over her bathing suit while sandals covered her feet. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the bright light that blazed upon the dry desert city. She took her sunglasses that hung from the front of her shirt. She slipped them on as she stood on the sidewalk with a bag carrying a change of clothes and other necessities.

A hunter green truck came roaring up to where she stood. She immediately recognized the man occupying the driver's seat. He was sporting khaki shorts and a form fitting shirt along with some shades covering his eyes and a grin plastered on his face.

"Hey, you ready to go?" Nick asked, leaning over to open the passenger's door for her. She nodded and grabbed her bag to hop inside the truck. As she slammed it behind her, she was thrown back into her seat as Nick stepped abruptly on the accelerator.

"Where did you learn how to drive? NASCAR?" she asked, getting a chuckle out of him. Lynndy grabbed the seatbelt and snapped it on as quickly as she could.

"Sorry, the gas gets stuck sometimes," he said playfully. "Gotta get that looked at."

"Yeah sure," she scoffed, knowing he was lying from the goofy grin that emerged on his face.

"I hope this will be fun for you," Nick said, changing the subject and thinking back to what they were going to do that day.

"Oh don't worry, it will be. I love going to the water, it reminds me of going to Corpus Christi back in Texas," Lynndy mentioned to him. Nick's eyes and interest perked up. That was a name he hadn't heard in a long time. She continued.

"You can always find me down there, collecting shells and other things I can find," she shared as her thoughts collected. Her voice changed as she drifted off into how stunning the ocean and sands were as she remembered. "It's so beautiful down there."

Nick hated to break up her thoughts, especially when her features softened as she gazed towards the scenery outside the window. He hesitated slightly, wanting to say something to her, feeling an emotion that he hadn't felt in a long time. A few strands of hair fell towards her face and he desperately tried not to brush them away for her. He returned his gaze quickly to the road, composing himself silently.

"Well, as you know, Nevada doesn't have a beach but we have the next best thing," Nick began, smiling. "We are going to Lake Mead and going water skiing. It's such a perfect day, I think you'll enjoy it."

Lynndy's thoughts were finally interrupted as she turned her head towards him and looked him over, wondering why in the world he was sporting a huge grin. But then she realized that he must love going out and having fun doing sports and other things. It was obvious he was athletic.

"It's funny how it's Fall, yet it's a sunny day," Lynndy remarked. "But then again we usually have abnormal weather and tornadoes back in Texas."

"Those twisters I do not miss," he commented as he turned the car into the local area. The sun was out and not a cloud could be seen for miles. The blue sky matched the crystal clear waters of the lake. Lynndy followed Nick out of the car as she took in the sights. She had never been here before so this whole experience was a trip for her. Feeling like a tourist, her eyes scanned the sands and water around her. Her hand planted above her eyes since the sunlight was too bright even for her black shades. The wind was blowing from the lake, whisking her long hair behind her.

"You ready to go?" Nick asked, breaking her out of her thoughts. She nodded silently and followed him.

After Nick paid for the rentals, they gathered towards the boat that they were going to use. They hopped in and Lynndy made herself comfortable on one of the benches. Nick skillfully turned on the boat and ventured out into the lake away from the populations of people on the sands. There were a number of boats already in the water pulling someone on skis. Some were showing off and doing flips and other fancy moves on the water. Lynndy looked upon them with interest but also silently chuckled at the ones who would fall into the water at their own stupidity.

"Have you ever skied before?" he asked her, finally stopping the boat.

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me how," she said to him. He laughed at her comment.

Nick helped her and explained how she should do it, from his previous experience. He also helped her with her skis and orange lifejacket. He then helped her fall back into the water. She held onto the tow rope tightly, fearing that she was going to regret this. He slowly made the boat go faster so she could pull herself into a standing position. She had some trouble balancing herself, which is normal for a beginner, but she was able to get herself upright. Feeling a sense of stupidity, she started to laugh at herself, not believing that she was doing this. Nick grinned immensely as he looked back at her quickly, making sure he was watching where he was going with the boat as well.

When Nick saw that she was getting the hang of it, keeping a tight grip on the tow rope, he decided to go a little faster. He saw her pull a little bit forward and she gave him a death stare, knowing the trick he had up his sleeve.

"You go faster, I'll kill you," she yelled towards him, warning him of his impending doom if he was going to attempt it. Nick gave an evil smile and sped up the boat, going side to side quickly.

Lynndy screamed, gripping the tow rope tighter so that her knuckles were sheet white as she tried desperately to keep a hold. Her heart raced as she tried to keep atop the rushing water underneath her skis. As she tried to keep her balance, a wave hit the skis from beneath her and threw her up a few feet, making her release the tow rope and fall backwards into the water. The skis helped her to the surface as she stayed afloat, swaying her arms back and forth underneath her as she lay on her back, the water making the sun blaze all around her.

"He is so dead," she mumbled to herself as she heard the boat making a turn around so that it came towards her to pick her up.

* * *

After giving Nick a hard time verbally while they headed back to shore, Lynndy made sure they touched sand before she decided to jump him. She hopped onto his back and wrapped her arms around his neck, making sure to squeeze tight. Nick just kept chuckling at her as he enveloped his hands around her arms to break them free so he could breathe. She finally let go, satisfied that she had her revenge on the little prank he pulled.

"I thought you were ready to do tricks, you seemed so professional out there," Nick played with her, placing a hand on his neck where she just had her grip on him.

"Oh yes, I really love falling into the water at 150 miles per hour, it's the thrill of a lifetime," Lynndy said sarcastically.

"I thought so too," he said smartly. She ignored this.

"My ass feels like someone used it as a bongo drum," she mentioned, rubbing her sore butt to gesture how bad it felt. Nick pressed his lips together tightly to suppress a laugh that was forcing to come out. Instead, he cleared his throat to rid of it.

"Let's go to the park nearby, we can have some lunch there," he pointed out. "I'm buying."

They gathered at the park that was close by where parents and their kids hung out to enjoy their stay at the lake. He paid for their lunches at a vending truck, which consisted of sandwiches and lemonade. Nick laid out a huge soft blanket he had brought from the truck upon the grass. They made themselves comfortable upon it.

"This isn't a date, is it?" Lynndy wanted to make sure, looking at him to see the reaction on his face.

"Uh no, just a friendly outing," he replied, setting their food on top of the blanket between them as they sat.

"Are you still trying to make up for being an asshat before?" she asked, smirking at him before taking a sip of her drink.

"Yeah, about that, I really didn't mean-" he started to apologize.

"Don't worry about that, let's just enjoy the day," she interrupted.

"So you're from Houston, you've been to Corpus Christi, you're really good at your job, what else don't I know about you?" She laughed at that. It was true, she never really opened up about herself since she was transferred to Las Vegas. Partially due to her being thrown into the different cases so fast it made her head spin. Her focus was on her job most of the time, not her personal or social life.

"I'm a geek, plain and simple," she mentioned. "When I'm not working, which is rare, I usually am a bookworm. I like learning new things, so I read lots of books. Some say I'm an 'Encyclopedia of Useless Information'."

"Oh great, Grissom in female form," Nick remarked playfully. Lynndy snorted at that, she only met Grissom once but she could already tell he possessed superior intelligence. Maybe she had some competition on her hands.

"What made you choose to be a CSI?" Nick asked, taking a bite of his sandwich.

"I don't know, it's always fascinated me," she started. "I would steal all the books in the library when I was younger and when I went home, I would read for hours and watch all of the documentaries I could find on television. Then when I enrolled in college I took everything and anything that had to do with the profession so that I knew everything. I'm very determined. If I am pinned in a corner by something I don't understand, I will find it. Probably why I work too hard on these cases we receive."

Lynndy hesitated and looked at Nick curiously. Seeing a handsome man like him in this profession seemed really odd for her. It was her turn to ask.

"How about you?" she questioned, cocking her head slightly in curiosity. Nick looked up at her and swallowed the food he had in his mouth quickly.

"I wasn't as obsessed as you, but I did fairly well in college. I mostly strived for it through personal reasons. But lately I've been questioning it," he admitted.

"Why?" she asked, now more intrigued.

"I don't know, it's like the same annoying routine sometimes. Always getting badgered by the civilians on how horrible we do our job, swearing up and down that we tamper with evidence on purpose, the usual," he answered, avoiding the past events in his life when he experienced worse than verbal abuse from citizens, he didn't want to share that with her, at least not yet.

"So the outside world gets on your nerves?" she inquired, trying to narrow it down.

"Pretty much," he replied, then changed the subject. "So, do you have someone waiting for you back at home?"

"You mean family?" she asked.

"Uh no, I meant like someone you might be seeing?" he said, taking a sip and using his drink to cover his face after that comment.

"And why, pray tell, would you be asking something like that?" she questioned, finding it hard to suppress a smirk that was trying to creep out.

"Just making conversation," he lied, silently wanting to know.

"Uh huh, so is asking about the weather," she remarked, getting a slight chuckle out of him.

"Okay, forget I asked," he said, feeling a little awkward now but hiding it with a grin.

"Man you're too easy," she told him, knowing she was very good at being herself. "And to answer your question, no I don't have a man waiting for me back at home. Just my family and friends. I usually keep to myself and my interests that I never sought out someone to call my own."

"I can understand that, sometimes with this job it's hard to even keep relationships so that was probably a smart move," he agreed with her.

Lynndy nodded to that. Her eyes moved over to the sunset that was just taking place, taking in its beauty. The colors were magnificent bordering the shades of orange, red, and a slight lavender. Nick followed her sight and took a look upon the majesty of the natural wonder along with her. He smiled at it as he watched the colors play out in the sky.

Lynndy kept her head towards the sunset, but adverted her eyes to the side to look at Nick's profile and warm smile. It's not like she could help it, she had to look at him. Especially when he was so content and not angry or concentrating so hard that he looked like someone else. No, she admired the way he looked when he was at ease, at peace. This moment. Right now.

He could sense her staring at him and automatically glanced in her direction. She gave him a one-sided smile, knowing she was caught.

"We should get going, it's getting cold," she mentioned, rubbing her arm to indicate that it was indeed becoming chilly.

He agreed and stood up while she followed. The darkness seemed to trail them as they set out back to the truck.

* * *

The night had a sharp wind chill making it seem colder than usual. The buzz about the sin city was in full swing. The lights, though bright and hot, couldn't make the air any warmer.

Lynndy and Nick met up with each other as they continued through the hallways to gather and receive their case for the night. They were getting along a lot better after their outing together. Lynndy had a lot of fun and felt special that someone would go out of their way to give her a good time. She hadn't had that kind of fun in a long time, since becoming a workaholic. The smile that was planted on her face was apparent.

"I can't even sit down properly, my butt is still sore from falling on the water at the speed of light," Lynndy explained to him as he snickered at her expense. She hated to admit it, she thought it was funny too.

"That was fun though," Nick said, hoping that despite her discomfort that she enjoyed it too.

"That it was," she admitted. She laughed as her thoughts spiraled in and out of the events. When the both of them eventually took notice around their surroundings in the halls, they observed some people running towards one of the labs in confusion and curiosity. Mumblings of information coming from the staff who passed by them were scarcely heard between them as they tried to figure out what was going on. Nick knitted his brows in confusion and started to jog towards the commotion as Lynndy followed suit.

When they arrived at the destination, it turned out to be the DNA lab. The moment that Nick and Lynndy came up to the entrance where a group of employees blocked the way, a couple of paramedics with white kits in hand came barging past them inside. Lynndy looked at Nick in fear who gave her the same kind of look as she tried to get a better view inside the lab. She saw the paramedics knelt down towards someone in a white lab coat sprawled on the floor, broken glass possibly from vials scattered the floor. Lynndy had to move to another spot behind the people and the lab equipment that kept her from seeing who it was. Her eyes grew as realization hit her while she glanced through the glass walls and caught sight of who it was; the person on the floor unconscious while the paramedics tried to work on getting the person to breathe.

It was Jennifer.

As Lynndy watched helplessly while the paramedics worked on her, she noticed that the woman was having a seizure as her body shook on the tile floor. A second pair of paramedics roared feverishly at the morbidly fascinated group for them to split so that they could get the collapsible gurney through. They assisted in getting her onto the gurney so they could transfer her to the hospital immediately. Some of them were frantic and Lynndy could only assume that they weren't getting any positive response from her and had to move quick.

Afterwards, Conrad Ecklie, clad in his usual cheap suit, pushed his way through the crowd, ordering them back to their stations. The crowd of employees reluctantly did so, questioning the fact that the assistant director was being so calm about something severe that had just happened. Nick had wondered where Greg was. His question was answered when he saw Warrick trying to calm down the apparently upset dirty blonde. Warrick took him to the side and was trying his best to reassure him that Jennifer would be fine. Nick was about to walk over and join him to try to help out but a strange comment soon held him back.

"I knew she couldn't handle being here, making mistakes, I know she did this to herself," Ecklie crudely said to Grissom, lack of sympathy evident in his voice. He placed his hands on his hips as though he knew everything; he wasn't remotely ready for the flying fist that came across his face. Greg stood there, anger in his face and a sharp pain now on his knuckles, he stared down the face of the man he loathed. Greg's mind was racing as his emotions got the best of him; clouding his judgment and the aftermath of his actions.

"She didn't attempt suicide!" Greg yelled at the superior. Shocked, Nick grasped Greg's punching arm and held it steady in case he wanted to strike again. He was a little frightened for he never saw Greg this upset before, but since he became a CSI he had changed a lot in the past few years; becoming deadly serious and angry.

"If we weren't short on people, I would have you fired right now, Mr. Sanders," he retorted, holding the outline of his jaw with his hand as if to make sure it wasn't broken. "You are to report to my office to determine an acceptable punishment."

Ecklie turned on his heels and left towards the direction of his office as Greg burned a hole through his backside with his stare. He pulled away from Nick's grasp as Grissom took his place in front of Greg with authority etched on his face as he placed his hand on Greg's shoulder.

"Greg, do you know how severe that action was?" he asked, trying to clue him in on the seriousness of how close he is to being fired.

"I don't care, I will not have him falsely accuse of what happened to her, it's people like him who make some of us want to leave, like Sara," he stated to his supervisor. Grissom was taken aback by that comment.

"Don't bring Sara into this, she left for different reasons," he informed him.

"Yeah, mainly because of you," he snapped as he pulled away from the other man's grip roughly and headed towards the opposite direction. He didn't know where to go but his dramatic leave was necessary so that he could have the time to think.

Grissom stood there shocked at what Greg said to him, his knitted brows were prominent above the rim of his specs. He remembered when Greg had been so snotty to him the day after Sara left but he just shrugged it off as him having a bad day and taking it out on him. Now, he knew that wasn't the case. Grissom was an intelligent man but sometimes the subtleties of a human being were beyond him.

Lynndy followed the dirty blonde silently as she tried to see if she could get Greg to explain what was going on. She was the curious type and needed to know what was going on; she hated being confused for any reason and knew that there was more to this than meets the eye. The conversations between him and Ecklie left questions thick in the air.

As she followed, Greg finally took his stop at the locker room since it was deserted at the moment. Angry, he punched the locker door that was in front of him and roughly sat on the center wooden bench, resting his elbows on his knees. Lynndy finally found her voice as she looked at him sympathetically, the violent act not phasing her one bit, but for Nick it did.

"You're gonna break your hand there, partner," Nick remarked, trying to calm him down slightly.

"Greg, what happened?" Lynndy boldly asked. Nick looked at her sternly, not liking the fact that she was butting into this when Greg was obviously upset. She acted as if she didn't notice that Nick was sneering in her direction. Greg didn't look at her, but shook his hand to dispose the sharp pain away, resulting in feeling the small, warm trickle of blood down his fingers; the combined damage of Ecklie's glass jaw and the aluminum rectangular door that was his locker.

"Here, let me get that," Nick noticed, turning the knob on the combination lock to open his locker and reached for the first aid kit he kept in there. Lynndy decided to try a different approach to pry out some information.

"Why would you think Ecklie thought Jennifer tried to take her own life in the labs?" Lynndy asked, still finding that thought strange as it escaped her lips.

"Because she was extremely upset last night after that prick yelled at her," Greg replied sourly.

"I can't believe what Ecklie said," Nick mentioned, trying to distract Lynndy from asking more questions as he was taking care of the gash on Greg's knuckle. He was not liking the fact that she was being so bold when all of this was striking many a nerve with his fellow co-worker. But Lynndy's pushing got him to talk.

"He's been skeptical of every tech who has tried to take my place," Greg began. "He keeps working them to see if they can handle pressure. Haven't you noticed how many people have come in and out of this place since I left? He's overworking them and Jennifer wasn't any different."

"But she's doing a great job," Nick mentioned, not exactly sure what he was getting at.

"Yeah, but he's been pushing her and making her work unnecessary overtime to see if she can deal with it and because she's new, she has made a few mistakes," he explained.

"We're only human, we make mistakes," Lynndy said to ease his frustration. He shook his head at that.

"But in Ecklie's eyes, that isn't good enough. He can't fire her because there isn't enough against her to do that, he wants her to quit."

He sighed.

"You guys were off the clock and I was working overtime on this new case with Warrick, I heard yelling so I went to check it out. It was Ecklie screaming at her because she made some kind of error, I didn't get all of the details. He had backed her up against a wall and when he left, she broke down and slid down the wall. I ran and caught her, I had never seen her like that before," he admitted, filling in the confusion of what had been going on.

"Oh, so that's why you slugged Ecklie," Nick figured out. Greg mumbled a curse word under his breath when Nick mentioned that, making him realize that he was in serious trouble for punching his superior.

"I shouldn't have done that, but I couldn't stop myself once it happened, all this rage I've had against him for so long," Greg responded and then stood up.

"Or were you pretending it was Grissom?" Nick asked. Greg looked up at him baffled as he thought of a quick response to that. But not one came. He decided to just leave it at that and stood up.

"I better get it over with," he mentioned, not wanting to elaborate on that. Nick understood why he didn't reply to that question and did not inquire further.

"Good luck, man," Nick wished him. As Greg pushed past them, Grissom came in the locker room as if on cue.

"Lynndy, Nick, I need you two to process the lab and see if there was anything in particular that caused her to collapse, we have to rule out anything here at the lab," Grissom instructed them. They both nodded and left to prepare themselves.

* * *

Nick and Lynndy went in the DNA lab and carefully traced their steps in there since there was shattered vials on the ground. Beams from both of their flashlights radiated the floor as they searched for anything that could be invisible to the naked eye.

"What do you think happened to her?" Nick questioned.

"I'm not sure, all I could see was that she wasn't breathing at one point and then she had a seizure," she recalled what she had witnessed. "Did you know if she had any sort of medical condition?"

"Not that I know of, we might need to ask Greg about that," Nick said, making a mental note of doing that later.

"I understand why he did what he did, but he shouldn't have punched that guy," Lynndy remarked about Greg's actions. "I know back in Houston he would be gone quick."

"Yeah, but let's hope not," Nick mentioned.

"I'll process the broken glass," she mentioned, slipping on her gloves and picking up a few jagged pieces. They knew they had to check all sorts of different things in the lab to make sure that nothing triggered some kind of reaction out of the tech. Nick helped her bag and swab a few things.

"You don't think she tried to take her own life, do you?" Nick asked, making sure that wasn't the case.

"I remember seeing her distressed a few times in the past weeks, but I just thought she was still trying to get the swing of things," Lynndy mentioned. "I really can't say because I don't know her that long but I don't think suicide was an intention of hers. I think Ecklie was hoping that she did, so that he can release her for 'mental instability.'"

"That sounds likely, but cruel," Nick told her, shaking his head as if to take that away from his mind.

"Did anyone see what happened to her? The Trace lab is across the way, did that weasel see anything?" she pointed out the lab on the other side of them. Nick laughed at how she described Hodges.

"I'll go ask him, I didn't see him earlier so I'm not sure if he saw anything," Nick volunteered. Making his way towards the other lab, he saw Hodges examining something under the microscope, acting as if nothing happened.

"Hey Hodges," Nick greeted. "I was wondering, did you see what happened to Jennifer?"

"I only heard glass break and when I looked, she was already on the floor," he explained what he had seen briefly. "Then I saw Sanders go to her and call for help. Tragic, what happened to her."

"So nothing out of the ordinary, she just fell and that was it?" he asked, trying to see if he could get more information out of him.

"That's it old boy," he said. "It's not like I was watching her every move, I have to work too, you know."

"Okay, thanks," he thanked him, going back over to the lab where Lynndy was finishing up what she could do.

"And the verdict is, she just fell," Nick relayed the short version of Hodges's story.

"I figured as much," she sighed. "I got what I could, which isn't much. I highly doubt the lab had anything to do with what happened to her. Hopefully, we'll find out what happened soon so we can get a better understanding."

They exited the lab with what they had and headed down the hallway.

* * *

Pacing in front of Grissom's office like someone waiting for a baby to be born, Nick waited impatiently for Grissom to get off of the phone. He knew that he was on the phone with the doctors and finding out how the DNA tech was doing from listening in on the one-sided conversation. Lynndy accompanied him as she leaned against the wall, watching and slightly amused by his pacing but remained silent.

Greg ended up being suspended without pay for a week, even though it was costing the lab in doing so. Although Ecklie had been firm in his decision, there was some kind of soft spot in him since he didn't fire him. Greg didn't care though, he rushed out of there so fast it would make anyone's head spin. He was glad that he could leave the lab and go see Jennifer at the hospital.

Nick finally stopped pacing when he heard the click of the phone being hung up. He changed his step to walk into the office. Grissom had known he was there, seeing him every once in a while as he spoke with the medical authorities. Lynndy followed, keeping silent as she knew Nick would be the one asking the questions to him.

"Any word on what the doctors came up with?" Nick asked straight out.

"They said that she suffered from Oleander poisoning," Grissom told them. The shock on their faces was apparent as well as confused at the same time. He continued, "Fortunately, they found out in time or else she could have died. They resorted to gastric lavage to get the remaining poison out of her system and have her under surveillance to make sure the remaining passes through her system and to monitor her vitals."

"Will she be all right?" Nick asked, concerned.

"Yes, she needs to remain at the hospital until further notice," Grissom replied. They knew that was all he was going to tell them so they left silently.

"How the hell did Oleander get into her system?" Nick asked, slightly baffled. "If I remember correctly, that kind of flower doesn't grow in the States."

"I believe they grow throughout the Mediterranean region," Lynndy recalled. "But I have no clue as to how it got in her body."

"We didn't find anything in the DNA labs, so we have to search elsewhere," Nick suggested as they continued down the hallways to figure out what to do now.

* * *

**Please read and review!! Thanks in advance!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey guys, sorry for the long delay, I have had quite a writer's block on this story. And I also apologize if this chapter isn't very good, I am hoping the next one will be much better. Please read and review!**

**Also I don't own anything except the original characters.**

* * *

Lynndy made her way to the break room, needing to unwind a little. She and Nick had been hard at work processing what they could and nothing was probative to what might have caused Jennifer to accidentally ingest the poisonous Oleander. They did not find any trace of it whatsoever in that lab. They had nothing to go on at the moment and were waiting on when Jennifer finally woke up so they can question her. Greg promised them that he would call when she had stirred, so it was just a matter of waiting. Nick had to check on a few things and Lynndy took this time to rest in the break room to soothe her ever-growing migraine and hunger pains.

Reaching into the refrigerator, she grabbed a diet soda and stole a sandwich in a Ziploc bag that Nick had labeled in red sharpie a caution to those who wanted to take it that he would curse them for life. Unfazed by this, she pulled out one of the halves and proceeded to nibble on the treat that she borrowed without returning. As she made her way to the table, Lynndy sat down and made herself comfortable. She took this time to people-watch, as she saw some of the lab techs and CSI's walking around the hallways, talking to their partners about what they had recently found. It was nice to be able to be on the other side of that for a moment.

Her thoughts went into how this incident with Jennifer occurred. The more she thought about it, the more her heart felt like it was going to explode. She didn't know the woman very well but she felt an extreme closeness and responsibility towards her. The times she saw how stressed and frazzled she had become over the past few weeks nagged at her, but she had become too busy to sit down and figure out what was going on. It was apparent that this woman kept things inside and strived to better herself but it had backfired. With the rareness of this toxic flower and the high statistics of female suicides being caused by poisonings, it was starting to haunt her that this might just have been the case.

As her thoughts spiraled, she was suddenly brought out of her little world as someone scared her by exaggerating a cough. Lynndy involuntarily jumped and accidentally knocked over her soda with her arm in the process. Catching her breath and looking at her culprit, she saw that it was Nick.

"I knew it, you're eating my sandwich!" he told her, slightly annoyed with his hands planted on his hips as he stood in the doorway. In her defense, she gave a little smirk in his direction.

"Oh come on, my butt was too sore to fix my own lunch," she mentioned, trying to make him feel bad for torturing her out on the lake. He chuckled, still finding her soreness amusing, while she added. "Besides, you can run on half a sandwich.

"Yeah, right," he scoffed before pointing out, "Your soda's leaking."

Lynndy gasped as she looked at the floor, the contents of the soda pouring slowly now since most of the brown fizzling substance had pooled on the floor beneath her feet. She growled slightly as Nick suppressed a chuckle.

"When you get that cleaned up, I'll take you to the hospital to see Jennifer," he mentioned. Her interests perked up immediately.

"Is she awake?" she questioned, her hopes high.

"Not yet, but there's nothing much more we can do here, might as well go over there," he told her. He turned on his heels to make his leave towards the exit to the parking garage.

Lynndy watched him leave before she looked around to find something to clean up her mess with. Silently cursing to herself, she walked towards the sink to search for a roll of paper towels or a cloth towel but she could not find either. Her arms reached up to the cabinets and pulled open the white doors to see if she could find anything. As she rummaged around and pushing things aside, she came across something that she had faintly noticed before. When she reached for it, she thought better of that decision. Instead, she kept searching for the paper towels. When she found them, she ripped a sheet off of the roll to grab the item. Stepping over her mess, she put it on the table for the time being.

After cleaning up, she went back to the item and, still using the paper towel sheet, she grabbed it and took it with her into another room. Before entering the room she had seized her kit in the process. She unlocked the hinges noisily and pulled out her gloves so that she didn't have to use the paper towel anymore - it had served its purpose. She snapped them on and proceeded to take out the fingerprint brush and powder, wanting to see if there were indeed any other fingerprints besides one person she knew had touched it. Her eyes caught sight of some fingerprints and continued to take an adhesive tape to collect them. After she was done, she opened an evidence bag to place the item in and labeled it. Her next step was to head for the Toxicology lab.

As Lynndy walked down the hallways, she noticed a geeky looking man in the typical long royal blue lab coat. He was busy processing, his attention solely on his work with a serious expression on his face. When Lynndy entered the lab, she approached him silently. He took notice of a presence entering his domain and looked up to see who it was.

"Hello," Lynndy greeted the lab tech with a friendly smile, keeping a good grasp on the tip of the evidence bag.

"Oh hi, I'm Henry, I didn't get a chance to introduce myself before," he greeted back. Henry grinned at her, showing off a wide, toothy smile.

"Nice to meet you," she mentioned, then went down to why she was really there. "Can you do me a favor? I want you to process this and all of the contents inside. I need to know if there is any trace of Oleander in here."

"Oleander?" he questioned, the friendly smile fading. He understood the urgency but also confused as to why it would be that specific poisonous flower. He held up the bag to take a closer look at the object inside.

"I want to see if this had anything to do with Jennifer's poisoning," she informed him, getting a stare from Henry. He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.

"Oh, uh sure, I'll get right on it," he promised her, placing it on top of everything else. To him, this was important to process to find out what happened to his fellow lab friend.

"Thanks, I'll be back soon for the results," Lynndy informed him before heading towards Fingerprints and then eventually taking her leave to meet up with Nick.

* * *

In the parking garage, Nick sat in the driver's side of the charcoal Expedition with his arm resting lazily on the steering wheel in front of him as he patiently waited. The engine hummed and reverberated through the vehicle as he started to fumble with the key chains which hung from the ignition key. As patient as he was, frustration was starting to permeate him as he set his sights out the side window to see if the tall woman was at least making her way towards the vehicle. Confused as to why it was taking her so long, he was about ready to hop out of the car and come after her, even if it was kicking and screaming. As he was about to close the door behind him, he noticed the Texan woman trekking towards his direction, cocking an eyebrow at him in her smartass way. Nick couldn't help but grin at her, finding her strides intriguing, but quickly shook his head so that he could feign a pissed off look instead.

Lynndy approached him and kept walking towards the passenger side without saying a word, purposely ignoring his death stare. The door was unlocked so she made her way into the car, making herself comfortable on the passenger seat. Nick followed by getting into the driver's side and then directing his attention towards her.

"What took you?" he questioned, watching as she strapped her seat belt across her body. Finally, she turned her head towards him to respond.

"The doctors told Grissom that Jennifer had ingested Oleander so they had to pump her stomach," she started to explain. "I remember when I met up with her in the break room a few times, she had a box of tea that she would take out and proceed to make her own cup of it. I found the tea box in the cupboard and processed it before sending it off to Toxicology."

"You think the tea made her sick?" Nick asked.

"It's a hunch," Lynndy mentioned. "If I remember correctly, the sap of the Oleander flower is the most dangerous. It can cause the person to go into a coma followed by death, but what happened to Jennifer had a different result. I think she might have ingested a different part of the flower to receive such an adverse effect. I believe the leaves of the flower can be dangerous, so that's why I'm having the bags tested, to see if there are any traces of Oleander leaves in any of them."

"So someone stuffed Oleander leaves in the tea bags," he told her, seeing where she was getting at. "She unknowingly brewed some tea and drank the residue left behind."

"Yeah, at least we have something processing while we give Jennifer a visit," she said to him.

"Good idea, especially since I know for a fact that Greg once told me that she usually brought her own tea from home" Nick mentioned, turning the key in the ignition to start the car to proceed towards the Desert Palms Hospital.

* * *

The cold white room filled with machines and tubes were scattered around the brunette woman in the hospital bed. A seemingly heartless room trained to keep a person alive whether it be natural or not. The sounds of the monotonous beeps echoed off of the white walls. The dirty blonde was seated beside her in an uncomfortable chair, trying every which way to be comfortable for more than a half hour. The curtains around the bed were drawn, which was the result of Greg wanting to be alone with Jennifer. He watched her chest rise and fall with every involuntary breath she took. The pure white sheets covered her lean frame and the hospital gown she was changed into. Her hands were almost lifeless as the top of them were consumed with tiny tubes that were taped down and inserted into the veins - mostly for the IV and other things the nurses had to do intravenously. A tube was placed underneath her nostrils to make sure she consumed enough oxygen and an inflatable cuff that monitored her vitals every half hour; which stirred Greg since the whirring noise disturbed him, until he got used to it.

Greg's eyes were heavy from lack of sleep, but he tried his best to stay awake. He was determined to be there for her when she awoke. The doctors told him that she was going to sleep for a while since they needed her body to rest to rid the rest of the poison out of her. He wanted her to wake though, to make sure that she was really okay - to see her eyes open and look at him with a smile would ease his anxiety. As he gazed at her face for the millionth time, he noticed that the color was back in her face and that relieved him somewhat.

He placed his elbow on the metal bar that was supposed to be the arm of the chair and rested his head in his hand. Sleep was trying to overtake him and it was apparent on his face. Since resting his head in his hand wasn't helping to keep himself awake, he resorted to finally placing his heavy head on the hospital bed beside her arm to rest for a bit. He figured that if she did wake, she would move and stir him awake. After a good amount of struggle, he surrendered to his fatigue and closed his eyes.

* * *

Lynndy and Nick arrived at the hospital entrance and asked where Jennifer's room was located. After being pointed in the right direction, they walked side by side in silence. Hospitals were never a happy visit, regardless of how minor or major the conditions were. They ultimately arrived at her room and saw that the curtain was drawn around the bed. Nick took the liberty of raising his hand and pushing it aside, the sound of the rollers moving at the top of the curtain didn't even disturb the dirty blonde, as they noticed Greg was hunched on the bed asleep. He looked peaceful and calm, which was a relief from all the worry that was etched in his face for quite some time. Nick and Lynndy looked at each other, not sure if they should wake him or not.

"I bet he's been up for the past two nights or so, with his case and now with her," Nick mentioned to her quietly.

"Yeah, I hate to wake him but maybe we should," Lynndy said to him. She took a couple strides forward to be beside him and gently placed her hand on the upper part of his back. Softly, she rubbed her hand back and forth to stir him - she was never one to wake someone up by shaking them. Greg's eyes fluttered opened before he squeezed them tight at strength of the light in the room. He awoke, sitting up in the chair before turning his head towards the two CSI's.

"Hey partner," Nick greeted with a smirk.

"Hey guys," Greg said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to wake up fully. "Guess I passed out for a while."

"I think so," Nick agreed amused. "How's she doing?"

"Um," he had to think about it for a second to clear the fog out his mind. "She seems to be doing better, they put her in a medicine-induced sleep so she's been out like a light for hours."

"Or she could be making up for lost sleep from work," Lynndy absentmindedly remarked, then tried to cover that up, "Or she's just a heavy sleeper."

Nick crossed the room to grab a few chairs so that they could sit down near the bed. Just then, a knock was heard on the doorframe and the CSI's turned to see who it was. It was the strawberry blonde supervisor they recognized immediately, coming inside the room with a sweet smile to greet them.

"Hey Catherine," Nick welcomed her in the room. Catherine came in, her heels clicking behind her and the tight wardrobe that enveloped her showed off a thin frame she possessed. Like a little lamb, Warrick followed behind her in his usual casual clothing. Both of them were trying not to show worry, knowing that she was going to be okay, but the situation not only affected Greg but the other CSI's as well. The lab was a close knit family and if one person is affected, so is everyone else.

"What are you guys doing here?" Lynndy asked, knowing that they were multiple cases open right now and were shocked to see they got out of theirs for the time being.

"We wanted to see how she was doing," Warrick answered. "We made some free time to visit."

"You mean you ditched Grissom and Ecklie somehow?" Nick said with an amused grin.

"Something like that," Warrick answered with a grin, his piercing green eyes scanning from Nick to the woman in the white bed.

As if on cue, Jennifer began to stir.

Jennifer's eyes blinked and moved as she tried to get used to the brightness of the artificial lights that were above her. Not sure where she was, the confusion was apparent on her face as she moved her head from side to side, observing her surroundings. Her eyes took in some of her co-workers but most of all, to Greg. The relief was planted on his face when he was sure that she was all right.

"Hey sleeping beauty," Warrick mentioned, wanting to be the first to say something. The others chuckled, more out of relief then anything.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice groggy, and still confused. "Why am I here?"

"You collapsed," Greg started to tell her, swallowing hard. "You were poisoned."

The shock was revealed on her face as she tried to absorb that information as her eyebrows knitted together in bewilderment. How could she have been poisoned? If she was in the hospital, it sure as hell wasn't food poisoning…

"What...?" she tried to conjure up a question but felt lightheaded and dizzy, the room seemingly spun around. She placed her tube-covered hand upon her forehead as if to make the spinning stop.

"This might not be the best time to tell you, you need your rest," Catherine said, the mother in her coming out instinctively. Concern appeared on her fair face as she looked upon the others in the room.

"We're glad you're okay, you gave us quite a scare," Warrick mentioned, rubbing Jennifer's arm slightly to show his comfort.

"Thanks," Jennifer said softly, feeling the discomfort fading slightly. Catherine and Warrick nodded to each other, sensing that they needed to get going before they were found out. They left the room quietly together to resume their tasks since, after all, they were still on duty.

Lynndy turned towards Greg, not sure how to break it to him. "Greg, we need to be alone with Jennifer so that-"

"I know, I'll just go get a soda from the vending machine," Greg told her, knowing that they needed to question her just in case this was a case of foul play. Since he wasn't on the case, he needed to leave them alone with her for a while. He made his leave, reluctantly, out of the door and down the hallway.

"How... What was I poisoned with?" Jennifer asked, finding it hard to believe that this happened to her.

"You had Oleander in your system, how you got it, Nick and I are trying to figure that out still," Lynndy told her.

"Oleander?" she questioned, finding that odd. She had heard of that plant before but finding it strange that it would end up in her system.

"Some people in the labs thought you consumed it intentionally," Nick mentioned, he needed to rule out the possibility that she did this to herself.

"I swear I didn't do this to myself, I have no idea how this happened to me," she defended. They were relieved, finally finding out that this wasn't premeditated.

"Do you remember what you ate?" Lynndy asked, trying to figure what might have happened.

"Actually, I haven't eaten anything for the past few days," she confessed regretfully with her head hung slightly. Her fingers intertwined with each other as a form of distraction so that she didn't have to look into the disappointed faces of her co-workers.

"Why not?" Nick asked, concerned. Jennifer sighed.

"When I get stressed, my appetite lessens," she admitted, finally looking up into the faces that she feared at the moment. "It's just a bad habit."

"You shouldn't do that to yourself," Lynndy said, concerned.

"I know, I do remember that I was in the labs and I felt lightheaded," she started to remember. "But I thought it was because of the lack of food and then I blacked out."

"You don't remember anything else?" Nick asked.

"Just that, and waking up now," she relayed. Lynndy then decided to question about what she had to drink.

"Did you have anything to drink?" she asked.

"Um, I believe that I drank some water and some of my tea, but that's it," she recalled.

"Do you think there might be anyone who might want to hurt you? Any grudge-heavy ex-boyfriends?" Nick asked, amused at Jennifer's reaction to that question as she laughed.

"No! I don't think I'm hated that much," she tried to joke, trying to make the situation a little lighter. "This is all a shock to me, I don't understand how this happened."

"We have to rule out any possibility since you were poisoned with a flower that is not common," Lynndy explained why they were playing twenty questions with the woman.

"Yeah, I know," she said understanding.

"We should go, you need your rest and I know that someone wants to spend time with you right now," Lynndy said, already knowing that Greg was in the hallway listening in. She happened to glance out the doorway and saw his shadow that was created from the artificial lights.

"Take care sweetheart, we need to get back to the labs," Nick sweetly told her, as if she was a child.

"Thanks," Jennifer told him with a soft smile. As the two CSI's stood up, they made their way to the doorway. Greg was leaning against the wall in the hallway, waiting for them to finish, with a can of soda in hand. From the look on his face, it wasn't helping much with waking him up.

"Hey partner, you need to get your rest soon," Nick said, taking note of how much fatigue had affected him.

"Thanks for the advice, Dad," Greg joked even though he was sleepy still. Lynndy smirked as she looked at him.

"We need to get going but let us know if anything changes," she told him. Greg nodded as he made his way inside the room to meet up with Jennifer. Her demeanor perked up as she saw him enter, a smile graced her face as he sat next to her and spoke to her. Nick and Lynndy made their leave down the hallway.

* * *

The labs were buzzing with different cases, different results, different conversations as Lynndy and Nick made their way through the winding hallways. The dissimilar noises around the labs were evident that the techs were busy like bees. Side by side, the two partners were headed towards Toxicology. It was perfect timing because Henry had paged Lynndy when they had arrived at the labs to check up on things. They entered the lab to find Henry processing a sample from another case.

"Hey, we're here, what did you find out on the tea bags?" Lynndy asked, glancing at the lab tech. Nick stood nearby, crossing his arms across his chest. Henry raised his head at her as she loomed over him.

"How is Jennifer doing?" Henry asked, worried about his fellow co-worker. He needed to be comforted that she was doing all right before confessing the results of the evidence.

"She's through the worst of it, but her body is in the process of riding itself of the poison," Lynndy admitted. "I'll let you know more news when I get it." He nodded, finding that good enough for him for now. He walked over to the results that printed on a sheet of paper and read the results to them.

"I analyzed the tea bags that she had brought to work. There were trace amounts of the typical tea ingredients; cinnamon, hibiscus, chamomile, chicory, so on. But I did find traces of oleandrin and neriine which are commonly found in oleander leaves. There were a good amount of leaves mixed in each one of the bags, it was difficult to determine exactly how many, but based on that amount, that is enough to kill a grown adult." Henry swallowed roughly before adding, "If the paramedics didn't get to her in time, she might not have made it."

"All of the bags contained Oleander?" Lynndy asked, feeling a little insecure that someone could be trying to poison the staff for their sick pleasure. When she examined the box, there were only about 5 bags but she didn't know how many were brewed by Jennifer before she finally collapsed. Henry nodded as an answer before she continued. "I guess it makes it easier to make sure she picked the right one."

"But here's the thing, the leaves were dried-" Henry started to explain but was interrupted.

"Well, being in the tea bags for however long they were, they tend to dry out," Lynndy told him.

"Not necessarily, Oleander is known to hold its toxicity even after drying," Henry revealed. "They're purposely dried since the ingredients in tea are as well, it's easier to blend into the other leaves and spices."

"So the question is, how did Oleander get there, it's not native to the States," Nick told them, placing his hands on his hips as he looked on to the other two.

"Oleander only grows in Morocco and Portugal through southern China," Henry informed.

"This could be a case of factory negligence," Lynndy theorized. "Most companies import their ingredients from different countries, especially when they try to commercialize their products as being exotic. There are always reports of toxic plants being shipped along with the provisions. This could be a case of a simple recall."

"That's what I thought at first, but take a look here," Henry mentioned, directing their attention towards the microscope nearby. He had Lynndy and Nick look into it one at a time.

"If you look closely, there are a total of four holes in the tea bag. Which can only mean that the miniature staple holding the tea bag together was taken off and replaced," Henry mentioned.

"Seems as though they were tampered with," Nick stated, sighing as now it seemed like there was more to this than what they initially thought.

They thanked the lab tech and headed down to see another one. The duo visited Mandy the Fingerprint Analyst, but they were told that the only fingerprints that were on the tea box were Jennifer's, which Lynndy predicted anyway. Even though it did seem like a case of negligence, now with Henry's findings, it seemed there was a lot more than meets the eye. There was one more place they needed to go to figure out if there was foul play involved: Jennifer's apartment.

* * *

The two CSI's opened the door to Jennifer's apartment. When they entered, it was very tidy which would make it easier for them to search the rooms. They knew that she had brought the tea from her home, as Nick had stated from what Greg told him, so they needed to figure out if there were any traces of the poison in her living arrangement. If they didn't find anything probative, then they would have to assume the tampering was done in the store from which it was purchased from.

The two separated so that they could go into the different rooms and check out anything suspicious. Lynndy took the obvious room first which was the kitchen. She set the silver kit down on the ground as she took out her flashlight to check for anything peculiar. Her gloved hand grabbed the handles of the cabinets and proceeded to search.

Nick headed for the bedroom with kit in hand and proceeded to take out his flashlight too so that he could see if anything would catch in the beams of light to perk his interest. His eyes scanned the room slowly as he tried to see what he could find. He knelt down on the hardwood floor one knee at a time as he took his flashlight to check underneath the bed. The beam of the light illuminated the darkness that consumed the area. When he moved the flashlight from one side to the other, he noticed something that was lying on the floor almost out of sight. He reached out for the item and grabbed it with his latex-covered hand as he kept one knee down on the ground and rested his arm on the other. It was a piece of paper with some handwriting on it; apparently it was a letter. His eyes scanned the cursive words and studied each sentence. As he did this, he slowly stood up on his feet, his brows knitted together. He relaxed his arm beside him with the paper still in hand and took long strides towards the bedroom exit to where his partner was.

"Lynndy," he called her name to get her attention. She was going through some documents that were littered on the table in the kitchen. Her attention was directed towards the call and she looked around for him. When she saw him, the concern was apparent on his face and her face fell into that of confusion.

"What's wrong? What did you find?" she asked, trying to figure out what was wrong. Nick held up the piece of paper to show her what he had found.

"This isn't a coincidence, someone wanted her dead."


End file.
